Cultivate: Measure

Centre City, New Plymouth, New Zealand, 2021

This work unfolds as a two-part installation embedded within the architecture of the mall. The window-based component intervenes in a conventional menswear display, using algorithmically shifting colour fields associated with diverse gender identities and sex characteristics to partially obscure the mannequins behind. By operating through coded colour rather than explicit imagery or text, the work subtly queers the heteronormative assumptions of retail presentation, remaining legible primarily to those familiar with the visual language employed. Adjacent to this, the wall-based installation comprises hundreds of individually coloured circles, each representing an LGBTQI+ person living in Taranaki, transforming abstract demographic data into a tangible visual field. Thin geometric outlines overlay the composition, articulating differing degrees of protection, regulation, and vulnerability experienced by these communities within the region. Together, the two works examine how queer presence is alternately concealed, encoded, and made visible within public space, while foregrounding the uneven structures that shape safety and recognition at a local level.