Sarah Bouchard
she/her
Athens, GA, USA
Sarah Bouchard currently resides in Athens, GA where she is an instructor of record and MFA Candidate. She received her BA in Studio Art and Philosophy from Coastal Carolina University in SC. Sarah has taught youth metalsmithing workshops and is currently a jewelry/metals instructor at the Lyndon House Arts Center in Athens.
“With the use of metal as the primary material, I have developed a set of tools to question, critique, and reimagine the confines of gender, domesticity and perception. By referencing the domestic space as the tethering point, this work seeks to perverse its outdated and discriminatory traditions by advocating for a standard that has no bounds and refuses to conform to heteronormativity. Ultimately, this work is about traversing identity. The tools allow for me to navigate and perform through an identity that is both authentic and made up—to reclaim one’s own agency by fabricating the space to do so.”
How does your work relate to the theme connection?
“This work is quite literally a connection--the end object being a fabricated aircraft electrical plug referencing those which I worked with throughout my military career. This element is then connected to a domestic object to create a useless and senseless tool. Though physically it serves no purpose, its use as a tool is to connect past, present, and future versions of identity by fusing stereotypes, personas, and perceptions with an authentic self. The tools allow for me to engage with and against previously established selves to pose questions about how one responds to the spaces they inhabit."
"Drain Plug", Copper, brass, plastic, 4” x 3” x 3” (variable dimensions), 2024
NYCJW24 @ UrbanGlass, Francely Flores
“In my practice, I am constantly connecting parts to hybridize and transform them into nonsensical forms. Previous bodies of work influence and become apart of existing works. But there is also a very intimate and personal connection between myself and the material. The process of making allows for me to sit with the material for long periods as I work, processing traumas, grief, and self-discovery--the work is very much about being connected to my own body. I then transform all of those emotionally embedded materials into absurd and queered tools that allow for me to engage with all of those experiences in different ways."
What role does connection play in your creative process?
NYCJW24 @ UrbanGlass, Francely Flores
NYCJW24 @ UrbanGlass, Simon Leung
"This work is very much about how I am responding to the world around me through my gender and queerness. It is how I morph and shift depending on the space that I am in. The tools vary from loud to soft to quiet to disgusting, all of which allow for me to move fluidly through spaces where I do or don't belong, as well as navigate my own identity within those spaces."
What connection(s) does your queerness make to the world around you?
[queerphoria]v4 @ ECU Symposium
