On Venus  

2019
Visual essay, LED wall, mirror floor, lights (13 min) 

On Venus continues Staff’s examination of the exchange between bodies, ecosystems, and institutions from a queer and trans perspective. Set above a mirrored floor flooded with radioactive yellow light, the moving images are comprised of warped footage documenting the industrial farming of commodities including urine, semen, meat, skins, and fur.    

The second half of the video includes a poem describing life on the planet Venus, a sibling to Earth but one described as a state of non-life or near-death, a queer state of being that is volatile and in constant metamorphosis. Staff’s work ultimately depicts states of violence that underpin the making of a human subject, inquiring about what is at stake in the making of liveable futures.   

*WARNING – this work includes images which may be distressing to some viewers – audience discretion is encouraged*   

P. Staff draws from a wide-ranging assortment of influences, including necropolitics, affect theory, and transpoetics, as well as their own studies in modern dance, astrology, and end of life care. In Staff’s interdisciplinary practice, these varying threads serve to emphasise the processes by which bodies – especially those of people who are queer, trans, or disabled – are interpreted, regulated, and disciplined in a rigorously controlled society.

Staff has recently exhibited at: Kunsthalle Basel; Commonwealth and Council; LUMA; Institute of Contemporary Art, Shanghai; Serpentine Galleries; the 59th Venice Biennale; 13th Shanghai Biennale; MoCA; MoMA; and Julia Stoschek Foundation, Düsseldorf

Göteborgs Konsthall