Artist Statement

lauren mcavoy is an artist/sculptor coming from New Orleans, Louisiana. They are a collaborator and queer labor organizer with a background in welding/fabrication, blacksmithing, and foundry. Focused on collective connection, they are passionate about non-hierarchical mutual aid, anti-colonial land access/stewardship, and embodied healing practices.

Like the false binary of gender, binary block is both heavy and entirely fabricated. Interrupting the rigidity of the cube with its curves and protrusions, this work points out the (almost) hilariously simplistic ways gender is assigned and policed within many of our current systems.

Both playful and menacing, binary block is an unsafe children’s toy—its materiality, scale, and weight all likely hazardous for children of block-playing age. In this way, it comments on the normalized harm we are indoctrinated into before aging into consciousness—being taught to think of our bodies (all bodies) as good/bad, right/wrong, failing at/succeeding in the performance of gender. And still, binary block is beautiful—its clear lines, fabrication, and sheen attractive as a produced object. It is right within itself—luscious, defined, and settled—whether or not its purpose, intention, or being remains unclear to those desiring categorization.