[MACHINE HUMMING SOUNDS]
I kind of enjoy being in that stage of perpetual confusion,
not being completely at place with one category
and being completely comfortable in that flux.
["Jes Fan In Flux"]
[Urban Glass, Brooklyn]
[Jes Fan, artist]
While I was in school in the RISD glass program,
learning how this matter transformed itself from one state into another
really entranced me into thinking, "How I can I apply it to other mediums?"
--You have to move so quick because the material is alive.
--It was liquid, now it's almost plastic
-- and then it'll become more like what we think of what glass is.
My work comes from two experiences.
--Blow.
One is moving from Hong Kong, where I was considered as a majority.
And then moving to the U.S. where I was suddenly considered as a minority.
And another one is growing up being queer.
Being queer in Hong Kong is very hard.
You can't find yourself represented.
When you can't see yourself in the mirror, you think you're a ghost.
I'm really curious as to how substances get imbued
with these really political identity categories,
and how there is also constantly a biological affiliation to race.
So I started making sculptures extending to biological mediums--
things that are imbued with identity categories--
specifically testosterone,
and also estrogen,
but also melanin.
In one of the projects I did called "Mother is a Women,"
I asked my mom for her urine samples.
There is nothing weirder than holding your mom's excretions in your hand
trying to cross U.S. customs.
[LAUGHS]
It's so weird.
Then I worked with a lab and extracted estrogen out of the sample,
and created a beauty cream out of it.
[VIDEO VOICE OVER] --The purest estrogen from my mother's urine...
[FAN] In this age where substances that sustain identity categories
can be bought, and sold, and made, and commissioned,
how am I, as a vessel of these identities, exist?
[Chinatown]
I started playing with these substances when a lot of friends around me started transitioning.
And also I started transitioning.
Using testosterone to masculinize my body
is in some way similar to using a chisel to carve out a surface.
In a way, you're sculpting your body.
And in a way, I'm also like that glass,
in this liquid transformation,
or perpetually in flux.
It's almost like watching Discovery Channel.
You learn codes
that you weren't brought up leaning
and you have to unlearn a lot.
It's not always comfortable.
[Recess, Brooklyn]
Right now, I'm working on a series of sculptures called "Systems."
They are all this lattice pattern
with these glass globules hanging on them.
These glass globules in turn become containers for these biological substances.
I pour silicone inside the vessel.
Then I inject melanin,
testosterone,
and also estrogen,
and also fat.
Playing with these substances,
I want to see it detached from the body and existing on its own.
Once they're removed from the body,
the sight of identification, like, "What are they?"
It's really interesting how animate these materials are,
not behaving in a way that you would expect it to.
There's a material expansion that wants to push the shells.
And sometimes it just implodes.
Holding the melanin in my hands,
or holding the hormones in my hands--
such contested political substance--
there's some absurdity in it.
How banal are these little flecks of powders?
This is ultimately the most absurd.
Maybe it is triggering the similar experiences of being racialized,
or being gendered.
It's just the disposition that you're constantly placed in--
a constant act of othering.
But, how can we be so absolutely certain that the binary can satisfy us?