Laughing [until/because] it Hurts: Finding Time for Queer Joy and Belonging through Art and Aesthetics
Abstract
This thesis explores queer art and aesthetics as rich in potential for the affects of queer joy and queer belonging. In addition to existing in a world that punishes deviance from systemic norms, marginalized groups are expected to be the leaders of systemic deconstruction. Moreover, I argue that the constraints of chrononormativity uniquely affect queer folks. These burdens are heavy. How, then, do queers find time for laughter? How do they create the opportunity to connect without the immediate pressure of socio-political reformation? When reformation is critical for survival, how do queer folks make time for joy? Research often prioritizes narratives of queer victimization, and although important, I contend that queer existence is joyful. Given the frequency with which art and aesthetics feature as conduits of affect, I explore four contemporary artworks as sites where queer joy and queer belonging occur. Through encounters with art, we may become untethered from the fast-paced temporality of capitalism and other systems of oppression. The theoretical frameworks of queer phenomenology, queer temporality, and affect theory undergird my perspective.
I provide analyses of a creative nonfiction essay entitled Time is the Thing a Body Moves Through by teacher, artist, and writer T Fleischmann (2019); my experience of the exhibition Camp: Notes on Fashion (2019) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; a live performance by queercore band Hunx and His Punx; and finally I document the promising glimmers of queer stick-and-poke tattooing. Through these artworks, I demonstrate how queer aesthetics can forge an alternative relationship to temporality. This thesis, therefore, shows how queers have been using art to create their own temporal worlds that foster joy and belonging.