JESSE WAKENSHAW
DUST
Sculptural forms—punctured, veiled, and visceral—echo the language of desire, intimacy, and surveillance. This work emerges from personal experiences of queer isolation and the quiet negotiations of safety, expression, and visibility. Growing up, the body often felt like a site of contradiction—watched, policed, and misunderstood. These sculptures and scents carry those tensions: the longing to be seen without being exposed, to be held without fear. Stark and sensory-driven, the installation unravels these complexities through olfactive and sculptural elements. Set against a backdrop of imagined collapse, it mirrors real anxieties—social, political, and internal. Through smell and space, the work invites viewers into a world where the personal becomes political, and survival becomes an intimate act of resistance. These forms speak to how queerness adapts and endures—always shifting, always carving out space for tenderness, even in the ruins.
