Eduardo Zavala — the grilled cheese grant

Eduardo Zavala

_{I’m
interested in the ways moss acts as a metaphor for queerness and in its
qualities of being able to survive in extreme conditions. Moss is nourishing,
it cultivates a healthier environment and engulfs entire forest floors. I’m
thinking about queer futurity and how I am everchanging and metamorphosing.
However, even in this promise of a queer future, it is playing into the system
of the dichotomy of 2, the past and future. I am juggling with this idea and
addressing time in a way that challenges the binaries within production.

My
work with natural materials such as dirt and mulch coupled with artificial
materials like paper and fake moss shows how this queer world exists
differently than our own. The body is autobiographical, a vessel containing
history and experiences from which I pull and use in my work. My body connects
and becomes an extension of the space communicating back and forth, exchanging
energy, and becoming aware of the other’s changes.

The
constraints of the binaries and the way society sees gender are imposed onto queer
people, alienating those who choose not to conform. I create queer spaces and
realities where I can reshape the binaries within my context by using natural
and created spaces. Utilizing set design to create a new reality allows me to
exist within my own constructs of gender and liberate the way I experience the binaries.

This
world is missing something, a feeling, queerness makes us feel that there is
something lacking from the here and now.

I
will be producing a Short film/video performance as an aspect of my thesis installation.
It follows the pov of a queer individual in our reality looking for something
more, a feeling of something else out there. something calling out to them,
pulsating, emitting energy leading them to utopia.

The
film starts using “straight time”, filmed conventionally. After the character
enters a “portal” they are transformed, they have lost their clothing and
emerge adorned with moss and glitter to show the physical change of stepping
into queer time and utopia.

The
calling becomes louder as the character moves through the new reality. Thinking
about queerness as something not yet reached and somewhere on the horizon, the
shots of the character in ‘utopia’ would play with the way the audience is
allowed to understand the space. I’m interested in the way blocking access acts
as a resistance to hierarchy and serves as a disruption of queer visuality. To
access it we may need to squint, to restrain our vision and force it to see otherwise.

As
the main character is moving through utopia, they are joined by two other queer
individuals who have also entered this new reality. They have little
understanding of who/what they are. Queerness in its utopian connotations
promises humans that aren’t yet here, reminiscent of human form but have
transcended human life as we know.

Utopia
is a process and not necessarily a destination, perhaps it’s community.

What
constitutes the arrival?

Budget:

top
soil $2.67x30 = $80.10

gallon
of glue $18.35

sheet
moss cover $4.97x30 = $149.10

mulch
$3.67x20 = $73.40

glitter
cardstock pack 24 sheets $29.99x2 = $59.98

fringe
backdrop $5.00x5 = $25.00

spray
insulation foam $3.18x15 = $47.70

foamboard
$20.82x2 = $41.64

cotton
fabric (per yard) $4.99x10 yds = $49.90

nude
underwear $7.99x3 = $23.97

gems
$17.99x2 = $35.98

green
cardstock paper $5.99x3 = $17.97

wire
mesh $15.76x2 = $31.52

plaster
cloth $8.99x2 = $17.98

spray
paint $8.44x7 = $59.08

large
scale printing $120x3 = $360.00

Total: $1,091.67}