At The Table: Counter Archive & The Architecture of Control
At the Table is an ongoing research-based installation and portrait project that examines the structural exclusion of 2SLGBTQ+ lives within the monumental machinery of the state. Through a combination of large-scale portraiture and a Brutalist "Living Archive," the work confronts the specific sites—legal, religious, and medical—where queer bodies have historically been processed as data rather than permitted as voices.
The portraits adopt the visual grammar of grand state portraiture, positioning sitters at a white table in a gesture of reclaimed authority. Across these surfaces, text authored by the subjects moves in a dense, justified block—an "institutional residue" that recalls the crushing weight of legal codes and medical forms. This typographic strategy, devoid of spaces, mirrors the compression of identity into the rigid confines of bureaucracy.
In this iteration, the project expands into the physical environment through the Living Archive. Occupying the center of the gallery is a series of industrial, Brutalist workstations—sites of simulated administration where the viewer is positioned as a witness to the system’s coldness. A row of fixed chairs and "In/Out" trays serve as a conduit for a traveling record of queer testimony. Each venue contributes new "filings" to this archive, which are then monumentalized as large-scale black canvas banners.
These banners, rendered in the same unrelenting typographic style as the portraits, transform the gallery into an architectural corridor of collective memory. By encircling the administrative core with twelve equally spaced, large-scale portraits, the exhibition creates a reversal of the panopticon: the system is placed under the permanent, unwavering gaze of those it has sought to regulate. At the Table does not merely document the history of exclusion; it builds a sanctuary of accountability out of the very materials of the institution.
Conceptual Framework for At the Table
1. Administrative Authority and the Seated Figure
The seated posture is drawn from historical portrait conventions in which the person with “the seat” held authority. At the Table repositions this structure. The sitter occupies a place typically tied to evaluation or judgment, but here they hold the position of witness, interrupting the visual hierarchy that once defined who was entitled to appear with authority.
2. Institutional Typography
The typographic system mirrors the fonts used in legal, medical, and bureaucratic documents. These styles signal regulation and standardization. Their presence on the portrait surface highlights how administrative systems have documented, classified, or restricted queer and trans people. The fonts act as institutional residue rather than decorative design.
3. White Clothing as Institutional Neutrality
White clothing removes cultural and economic markers, echoing the “neutral” or unmarked body in administrative imaging. In this context, white refers to the flattening effects of institutional processes, where individuality is stripped in favour of standardization. It signals structural erasure rather than purity or aesthetic minimalism.
4. Objects as Personal Evidence
The objects placed on the table serve as forms of personal evidence that fall outside institutional categories. Unlike historical portrait props used to communicate status, these items reflect memory, grounding, and lived experience. They function as components of testimony, countering the limited fields of information captured in formal records.
5. Hyperrealism as Counter-Documentation
Hyperrealism has historically been tied to authority—state portraiture, forensic illustration, and scientific observation. In this series, high-resolution drawing becomes a method of counter-documentation. It applies the visual precision of official imaging to individuals often misrepresented or excluded by those systems, creating records that operate outside institutional control.