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Inspired by the work of choreographer Trisha Brown, INHIBITIONISM experimented with material affordances, relational aesthetics, and play over the course of a weeklong takeover of a gallery space in Iowa City in November 2025. Each night, in collaboration with photographer Ramin Roshandel, I performed a series of private improvisations with a single object:

  • a coat rack (night 1);
  • a mirror (night 2);
  • a blanket (night 3);
  • a drum kit (night 4);
  • a nylon rope (night 5);
  • a papier-mâché horse head (night 6).
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The resulting photographs—tragic and humorous, allusive and opaque—were displayed in the gallery each morning in a single row, spanning the entire circumference of the room and interacting directly with its architecture: images folded around corners, cleaved in two when interrupted by doors, and were penetrated by light switches, doorstops, and other permanent fixtures.

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Each day, all objects used thus far were assembled into a new sculpture displayed in the center of the room, as though pulling the photographs into gravitational orbit.

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Rather than stricly observing and documenting my explorations from a single perspective, Roshandel acted as an active participant. We worked in tandem, each ("Hold that pose—got it!") directing the other ("Can you get that in a wide shot?"), each performing for both ourselves, each other, and the viewer who would observe these images in the future in the very room where they were shot. Beyond our own agency, each object took on a singular authority in conducting our actions. A mirror both exposes and conceals; a blanket becomes a black-box theater. Both material (rigid or flexible? large or small? bright or dark?) and immaterial (sex, death, fear, companionship) considerations played a role.

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The architecture of the room also both inspired and limited our activity: The white walls, concrete floors, corners, edges, windows, doorways, and even the ventilation pipes and lighting grid on the ceiling shaped our behavior.

With each passing day, existing rows of photographs accumulated in the background, turning the room into an ouroboric portal through time.

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