Furniture for Hospital Orchards

2023
Dimensions vary
Custom fabrics, upholstery materials, aluminum frame, ceramic and mixed media fruits cast from Sonoma State Hospital Historic Orchard, carpet, audio

Furniture for Hospital Orchards imagines an alternative time and space for queer, trans, disabled, and immigrant people who were committed to Sonoma State Hospital, an institution that implemented forced sterilization from 1909–1979. This series connects to my personal family lineage as well as a collective Bay Area trans/gender non conforming, queer, and mad ancestry by imagining a world where those forced to labor in state hospitals, specifically in the hospital’s orchard, could redirect their energy towards their own rest, healing, and pleasure. By highlighting parallels between historic horticultural practices and the forced sterilization movement in the Bay Area, the work challenges eugenics informed constructs of what it means to be “normal” and celebrates the variance that eugenics attempts to erase.