EMILY BUDD – VIRTUAL EXHIBITION OF HER TRACTOR ONLINE RESIDENCY
Statement
Late Bloomer traverses the mystery, awkwardness, survival, and ultimate expansion of queer desire and futurity. This project combines video collage, projection, geologic matter and cast aluminum into environments that exaggerate the disillusion of a virtual gallery space. Found objects, garbage and natural matter gather unexpectedly into recomposed forms. Fruits are cast into wax candles that burn at both ends. Melted scrap metal has been recast into transformative objects that point towards queer tending and flourishing, for endings and beginnings outside of linear time. Horn and bell-like forms emerge, twist and burst forth carrying reimagined artifacts, representing an unknown queer future yet to be discovered. Videos use collected imagery to portray liquid dreamscapes, diving into the delicious delusions of utopia and hazy futurities.
Late Bloomer
Late Bloomers rustled in secret breezes in the shadows. Late Bloomers were told for so long that they were wrong, they didn’t know how to love until it was too late. Late Bloomers are the unknown lovers who could’ve told us. Late Bloomers are the ancestors we lost to AIDS and suicide and witch hunts, and we are the Late Bloomers who quilt their graves with flowers.
Be a real woman, Late Bloomer. Why are you wearing that, Late Bloomer? Why are you so awkward, Late Bloomer? Late Bloomers will bring your youth back. Late Bloomers bring color to your garden in Winter. Late Bloomers are on sale and twice the size, not one not two but three Late Bloomers. Late Bloomers don’t deserve to be lonely. Late Bloomers know that the heart deceives but the gut speaks the truth.
Late Bloomers are the planted seeds of a queer future. Late Bloomers grow towards the mystery like it’s the sun. Late Bloomers will be survival guides through apocalyptic transformation. Late Bloomers will die old and happy. Late Bloomers’ dreams will blossom, and we are the Late Bloomers who will press them in pages to remember them.