In The Studio: Liss LaFleur

FUTURE KIN
Liss LaFleur
August 24 – September 28, 2024
Open House: Saturday August 24th from 5:30 - 7:30pm

Galleri Urbane is pleased to announce FUTURE KIN, an exhibition of artworks by Texas-based artist Liss LaFleur. For her third solo exhibition with the gallery, LaFleur presents a new body of work as part of her ongoing series, The Queer Birth Project.

The Queer Birth Project reflects on the experiences of queer (LGBTQ+) childbirth and family formation in the United States. Based on original and archival research conducted collaboratively with sociologist Katherine Sobering, this work re-envisions artist Judy Chicago’s Birth Project (1980–85) and promotes a radically inclusive view of childbirth, reproductive justice, and family in a post-Roe era. This exhibition centers an expansive exploration of family, queer kinship models, and future forms of belonging. It is the second in a series of six thematically focused collections of multimedia works that will lead to a published book and interactive digital archive.

Included in FUTURE KIN are four primary, interconnected artworks that are informed by interviews and surveys conducted with over 100 queer families. These include a suspended, digitally printed fringe, glass mobiles, three neon sculptures produced in collaboration with Lite Brite Neon, and an immersive audio piece that takes the form of a libretto. Handheld speakers allow visitors to experience the slow, deeply lyrical, transportative text, amplified and queered through digital distortion, as they move through the space. Secondary to these works is a single channel video and a stack of two prints on paper, continually replenished throughout the duration of the exhibition. Referencing the suspended kinetic mobiles presented in the gallery, each print offers an alternative family model. Visitors are invited to help themselves to these prints, recontextualizing the work through their own personal environments.
“These works are inspired by and share the stories of LGBTQ+ families,” says Katherine Sobering. “This project centers on their lived experiences in their own words. Each work honors and shares these stories in different ways.” “We are interested in doing this work not as a way to assimilate but as a way to propose futures that are inclusive and expansive and [to] think about queerness as a space that can provide joy and representation that doesn’t currently exist,” shared LaFleur.

Described by LaFleur as a “love letter to future kin,” the exhibition both lifts up and deconstructs through transformation. It constitutes an experiment in foregrounding new family constellations while holding space for future forms of kinship.