Becoming an Image 3 Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Jun 1 2012

Location: 

Los Angeles, London, and Worldwide

Cassils' Becoming an Image confronts issues of queer and trans visibility, bodily violence, and the politics of witnessing. The performance uses a powerful blend of media—including live action in darkness, flash photography, clay sculpture, and sound—to explore how trauma and resilience are physically and symbolically inscribed onto the queer body. The artist’s physical engagement with a massive block of clay becomes a metaphor for the shaping and endurance of marginalized identities. Long-term, the work aims to archive queer experience, challenge normative representations of violence and gender, and generate sustained affective engagement and solidarity through art.

External sources: 

https://www.cassils.net/cassils-artwork-becoming-an-image
Posted by jeremy_burmeister on May 10 2025

Staff rating: 

0

Effectiveness

How does this project help?

Amplifies (issue or campaign)Brings public and political attention to an issue or campaign.  Can include prefigurative action, making the invisible visible.
Strengthens (community)Strengthens, builds and celebrates community through ritual and/or symbol.

Timeframe For change

This project seems to be part of a campaign with a clear long-term goal. Long-term goals tend to be things like: end racism; end homophobia; make the sun stand still in the sky. A campaign with a long-term goal also needs to have some kind of theory of change.
The work aims to archive queer trauma and resilience, reshape public perception of trans bodies, and provoke deeper reflection on violence and identity. It seeks to activate emotional engagement, challenge dominant narratives, and ensure lasting visibility for trans experiences within cultural and institutional memory.

Notes

Cassils’ Becoming an Image is highly effective in confronting audiences with the realities of trans and queer violence. Through its immersive, disorienting format and powerful use of the artist’s body, the work provokes deep emotional and intellectual engagement. Its impact endures beyond the performance through sculpture, photography, and sound, successfully fostering ongoing dialogue about visibility, trauma, and resistance. Since it is on-going, it can continue to æffect change.