I am getting kicked out of my apartment in Berlin. I’ve got several months to move out but it’s a big bummer because originally Michael told me that I would be given another place to move into along with a contract in my name after 9 years of trying, but he changed his mind. The cycle continues!
Instead of complaining about housing, or the collapse of infrastructure in Berlin to support artists, I wanted to make a 2024 year recap, because a lot of amazing things happened this year, most of which I was too busy to write at length about. I will revisit some of these later but I wanted to start with 12 months, 12 images, 12 stories.
January. This year started out with a commission from the Stattoper Hannover (State Opera) and the incredible Nagi Gianni helped create masks of my face to turn the XOIR into Janus-esque protectors of the portal between the world of the living and the dead. In times of war, Janus looks both forward and backward in time to protect the present.
February. In New Orleans, before the dawn rises the morning after Mardi Gras, a silent processional is made en masse along the Mississippi. This year we made our processional in the quiet fog. This ceremony marks a grieving and letting go, a casting off of what has come before, calling forward anew. I said goodbye to my friend Xenia, to my sister Simone Babes Trust, and to the countless lives that had already been lost in Gaza by the time February had rolled around. Grief work. Many creatures reaching together into a collective transformation.
March. For a group show in Paris at the Frac-il-de-France, I made three animatronics of my friends Charlene Incarnate, Christeene Vale, and Jam (Planningtorock). I never posted about this show because I didn’t love the way these figures came out. Along the way I made some mock-ups out of resin-poxy, clay, synthetic hair, and animatronic toys, and was advised by my studio assistant, Oliver Coran, to show them instead. I wish I had taken his advice.
April. In some of the most despondent times in Germany earlier this year, facing censorship from the Stattoper Hannover, I met a phenomenal group of locals from Hannover, Germany who really pulled me out of my misanthropic feelings about Germany and helped me understand that even in the worst of times, there are incredible people creating support and solidarity, even in the most racist, xenophobic parts of the country. I was blown away by their spirit, their enthusiasm, and willingness to support me.
May. At this point, if you haven’t heard me talk about Agosto Machado, you are not paying attention. In April I went to his home to film and interview him for a forthcoming project amidst all his shrines. Our conversations this year seem to span hours and decades, fueling me to feel connected to a collective fight that extends far beyond my lifetime in both directions. There is so much to say about how deeply this person has changed me over the last few years, but specifically in 2024, being with him has helped me understand my own past, present, and future.
June. These are the arms of Ethel, my puppet character for Where The Souls Go. June was a magical month for me. I wrote most of the script in 2 days and made Ethel out of polymer clay, wire, acrylic paint, and some Bcalla leggings from 2009 which had lost their elasticity and were beginning to fall apart. Sholem Krishtalka came over and helped make the hands while I made her head. One of the greatest joys of this year was studio material time. It's an absolute salve for the soul. Slow space for the spirit to dream.
July. Of all the things I made in 2024, I am the most proud of Where The Souls Go, which premiered at the New Theater Hollywood starring Diamond Stingily, Bailey Stiles, Frank Traynor, myself, and Kaiba. Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff produced it and I am very proud of what we made. Based partially on a conversation with Diamond and my relationship with Agosto and the stories he has told me over the last several years, the play centers around Dorothy Stingily unexpectedly finding herself amidst a group of queer elders who, in their own search for belonging and meaning, help Dorothy find her way.
August. Charlene Incarnate invited me to be a drag performer for a quiet summer festival called Honcho, which became a profoundly affirming moment of immanence; to be here on earth and feel grounded in human connection across a stretch of 4 days. Luis Peralta and Mark Burnett helped me make these huge Lindsay Kempp-inspired angel wings. To be with only queer and trans people in the forest for the first time in my life gave me remarkable energy that makes even the darkest days of winter a little more tolerable. Inexplicable, really.
September. Second year of TIAPS. In 2023, Monica Mirabile and I launched This is a Performance School, or TIAPS, a program we spent five years developing. It is hard for me to talk about TIAPS and not sound profusely emphatic about it. Looping in one of my favorite artists DonChristian Jones as a co-facilitator, I undoubtedly made some new life-long connections and am very much looking forward to this program unfurling in its various forms over the next decade.
October. Wow. For being such an unmoored year of transience, I got to stay in one place for almost three months this year, at the La Becque residency in Vevey, Switzerland. Staying in one place for three months is a luxury for me. I don’t usually get to go 1 month, let alone 3 months without at least one train or plane ride. I do not, however, take my transience for granted. I was moved by my time with collaborator Bobbi Salvor Menuez working on these music videos and album release preparations. So much work goes into independently released music, even with the support of a label, and all of it was only possible because of La Becque.
November. Learning how to fire and glaze ceramics was one of the biggest treasures of my year. Spending hours in the studio sitting with earth material and bearing witness to a process of negotiation and translation with earth material, heat, and time transformed my understanding of what is possible. Ghost of Candy (2024) is one of four figurines I made while listening to Cynthia Carr’s book Candy Darling: Dreamer, Icon, Superstar. I want to make more ceramic puppets in 2025.
December. I went to Vienna with my boyfriend Christian Alborz Oldham to record a replica of a mechanical speaking machine from 1780 created by Johann Wolfgang Ritter von Kempelen de Pázmánd in preparation for Christian’s forthcoming exhibition at the Kunstverein Munich. The experience ended up being a shockingly emotional one, with Christian and I both tearing up from the sound of a disembodied voice crying “Mama”, “Papa”, and other words.
We walked by this double-decker carousel on our way back to the accommodations. Two years ago, while in conversation with intuitive Asher Hartman, I told him about my fears about being an artist for the rest of my life and the prospect of doing something else instead.The image that came to his mind was that of a carousel sitting still. Although it is not moving, the simple existence of the carousel implies motion, color, lights, animals, characters, music, and fanfare. He said “You can do everything you can to try to stop making art, Colin, but at the end of the day, it is like this carousel sitting in stillness. Its mere existence eludes to the movement and sound, and will, against all odds, find a way to continue to spin.”