Research Catalogue

In her book ‘Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories’ Elizabeth Freeman (2010) recognises the erotic body as a method to speak about non-normative experience of chronopolitics for queer identities. Ceglarz’s research borrows Freeman’s method (erotohistoriography) and applies it in practice-led fine art research in order to materialise pleasurable nooks of time and to create experiences of disorientating interruptions. His research seeks to disjoint the dominant narrative of pain and trauma in discourses on LGBTQI+ identities. Ceglarz does this by focusing on materialising the experience of melancholy that emerges from the loss of spaces that served and cared for gay erotic practices. His installation titled ‘Love’ (2019) uses a combination of works that reflect on the migration of these spaces from the partially public sphere into pre-dominantly private. In these works he uses phallic imaginary embedding it with the domestic materialities and practices; from plates, egg cups, table cloths and hand towels that are painted, embroidered ironed and displayed. Accompanying the installation is a performance piece comprised of: reading out aloud the ‘Love Manifesto’ (Ceglarz, 2019); a love letter addressed to ‘My Dear Old Faggots’: and phallic shaped glitter pieces thrown sporadically into the air from a coffee cup with the word ‘Cocksucker’ painted on it. To enhance this experience, Ceglarz also uses the poetry of Jean Genet in his pieces, attenuating the non-chrononormative melancholy that allows for the “collapse of past and future into an immediate intensity” (Johnny Golding, 2013). The installation and performance piece formed the basis of a solo exhibition in the international artist-run space, Lab155, Bologna (2019), and were part of the international conference ‘Un-tie the Knot: Redefining normativity in Love’ (2019) part of ORGAN VITA arts festival in Croatia held in the Museum of Nicola Tesla, Zagreb.

"Virus" synthesises four years of performative and traditional research—engaging a range of contemporary artists, institutions, and writing practices to reformulate possibilities for art criticism and institutional critique within artworlds. This practice-based research offers new possibilities for embodied art criticism. The work makes visible, interrupts, and challenges the violent and patriarchal structures of the artworld, offering new modes and practices of feminist and queer artmaking, critique, and resistance. As well as the novella, "Virus" comprises sculptural elements, videos, performance, and a series of prints of spells written for/against the artworld. This research contributes to performance art, situating itself on the borders of ritual, language, and performativity. The spell works are at the centre of a ‘re-emergence’ of witchcraft in art, and new possibilities for performance-as-criticism. "Virus" is a singular output in multiple fields—literary criticism; experimental writing; contemporary art; eco-feminism; queer theory, and objectification studies—and its multidisciplinarity contributes to each of these fields. Its assertion as an art object, in the form of writing, is an integral moment for the conception of the ‘Art Writing’ discipline. The spells appeared in a major survey show of feminist art touring the UK (‘Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance’, 2018–19), as well as survey shows about witchcraft and contemporary art in Vienna and Cornwall. Stupart performed spells as research outputs at the University of Melbourne; 4S: Society for Social Science annual conference, Sydney; Edinburgh University; Reading University; and as an exemplary of practice-based research in the BCU PGCert lecture program. "Virus" is the subject of two conference papers: Ass. Prof. Helen Hester (‘Towards a Theory of Thing-Women’, 2017) and Dr Holly Pester (‘Common Rest’ 2016). It is on university reading lists including: Royal Academy of Art, Copenhagen; Reading University; University of Cape Town; Queen Mary and Goldsmiths, London University; and LCC.