ESSAY—MONSTROUS REFLECTION, HUMAN REVERBERATION

Shana de Villiers paints the exhibition space of Das Leben am Haverkamp magenta. They transform this space into Frankie’s bedroom: a monster that is everywhere but nowhere to be found. In a sense, the walls encompass Frankie’s interior, which is accentuated by the purple-red that evokes the fleshy, organic in me. As a colour, magenta is somewhat absurd, otherworldly, perfect for depicting the resting place of the monster. Frankie is a shape-shifting creature, and visitors to Shana’s exhibition I am Frankie, and you still love me are invited to enter their refuge. 

I meet Shana in their studio in The Hague, where they, as artist in residence for the collective Das Leben am Haverkamp, are working on their exhibition. Shana tells me how their original idea was to create a sculpture of the creature. Soon, Shana realized that Frankie was too slippery to capture in a fixed form, frogspawn slipping between fingers, and shifted their focus to Frankie’s surroundings.

The symbolism of a bedroom intrigues me. It says a lot about a person, or in this case, a creature. I think of my own room, how my countless trinkets, powdery-pink wall, seasonal clothing rack, upside-down daffodils, and Polaroid-framed mirror form an imprint of my being. Sometimes I say that my wardrobe describes me better than my voice could. As a spoken word artist, I see fashion as an extension of my poetics. My dress speaks, my lipstick refers, my shoes sing. Before I speak, my costumed body, my decorated body has already told a story. My encounter with Shana encourages me to see the bedroom-as-notion in the same way. When grandmother first visited my studio apartment, she said I lived in a museum, and she was right, my room is a museum, a museum of the self, or rather, a museum of my different selves.

An inspiration for Shana’s exhibition is the work of the American writer Kathy Acker, in which the self as an assemblage plays an important role. Shana asks me if I’ve ever read anything by Kathy Acker, and I shake my head, asking why the self and, primarily, the splitting of selves fascinates Shana. They believe we all carry different versions of ourselves within us. "You can dream with many selves," says Shana, "which is important." I believe in continuous change, and I’ve always thought I have one self that is constantly moving forward. As a trans woman, I like to describe my transition as changing shapes without changing who I am. I’m simply walking through doors in an endlessly growing house. Because of Shana, I wonder if my self is perhaps multiple after all – although I see it more prismatically, with selves that are close to each other but differ in shade.

Frankie, too, seems to have multiple selves. I use a linking verb – seems – because the visitor only catches a glimpse here and a shimmer there of who or what Frankie might be. In the magenta space, there is a sofa with pink ears, made from a texture reminiscent of skin. This reinforces the idea that Frankie is its room, as I am my room, as you might be your room. In their studio, Shana shows me other clothing items and props that are part of the exhibition. On the floor, for example, lies a long, patchwork dress, a garment that plays with self-expression, form, and length, and Shana shows me underwear with a bejeweled urine stain, larger than the dress, as if Frankie wears these clothes in different forms. Shana attaches a piece of jewelry to the sofa ear, hands me a perfume bottle, and tells me how they might write a diary entry for Frankie, and I understand that all these ornaments describe the creature better than a sculpture ever could. What are we, if not the decorations we adorn ourselves with, the trinkets we surround ourselves with?

On the wall I notice a sketch of Frankie’s back, half-turned, through which Shana explores the idea of hanging a painting in the exhibition space – another hint as to who or what Frankie might be. It will never be a full likeness, as the creature is more energy than form. Shana and I continue talking. I hear how the exhibition plays with perspective and boundaries, how the visitor becomes part of the space, sinking deeper into the quicksand of this bedroom. It starts from  the moment they enter the space when they are greeted by Ladybug, a theatrical character in a  ladybug costume. Ladybug fulfils the role of mediator, the creature standing between Frankie and the visitor, allowing others to enter the space. After all, it is the bedroom of someone who is not (fully) there. Shana loves symbolism, which the ladybug as a sign of protection demonstrates.

Ladybug asks the visitor, to some degree an intruder, to take off their shoes and put on slippers before stepping into the magenta space. These are monster slippers, furry, soft, green, pink, with two or sometimes four toes, that Shana adds to the exhibition. Through footwear, Shana transforms the visitor into a monster, as if the visitor themself is Frankie, as if this is their own bedroom. The exhibition description states that Frankie is a ‘shapeshifting creature-character’ that some will call  ‘monster.’ I ask Shana about their attraction to the monstrous, and we move into the direction of shame, one of the underlying themes of the exhibition.

According to Shana, we all carry shame with us, some more than others. Especially those of us who are marginalized and thus monstered, deemed monstrous, feel a great deal of shame. Shana adds that shame can be a projection, that shame is sewn onto us like a clothing label because the person with the needle feels shame: "That is how you make a monster." The exhibition keeps the visitor guessing and holds up a mirror, making us question who or what the monster is: the intruder or the absent one, and to what extent we are involved in the monstering process. As a trans woman, I am constantly monstered which makes me wary of the figure of the monster. I find it refreshing that Shana doesn’t claim the monstrous to then parade around with it as marginalized people often do, as marginalized people are expected to do. I think of Paul B. Preciado or Susan Stryker*, who, as trans writers, identify with the monster of Frankenstein. According to Paul and Susan, trans people, like the creation in Mary Shelley’s novel, are not born monsters, but made monstrous. In their exhibition, Shana approaches the monster discourse differently, not by simply embracing the figure, but by stretching out the category, letting it glisten like glass in sunlight, causing the monstrous to reflect in all directions and the human to reverberate.

*I am thinking specifically of Paul Preciado’s text Can the Monster Speak? A Report to an Academy of Psychoanalysts(translated into English by Frank Wynne, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions in 2021) and Susan Stryker’s My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage (a chapter from Routledge’s The Transgender Studies Reader, published in 2006).

Read more about the exhibition 'I am Frankie, and you still love me.' here.

Author: Vlinder Verouden
Editor: Laure van den Hout (Mister Motley)
Image: sketch Shana de Villiers

Supported by Creative Industries Fund NL, Stroom Den Haag and Gemeente Den Haag.