The development of my practice stems from the Made & Undone (2010) performances of stereotypical characters undertaken during my final year as an undergraduate. These performances were initiated through collaborations with non-artists (friends and family) who were invited to dress me as their choice of stereotype. I therefore became a range of other identities including chav, teenage emo, slick man, posh woman, etc. The characters (some more than others) were then developed further, often through contingency, as they were performed within, and interacted with, the everyday world, participating with people, events, situations and locations. These interactions enabled the characters to suggest an individual life and history, independent from my own with evidence, documentation and residue of their presence within the world. These collaborations, participations, interventions and performances centering on British stereotypes became key within my practice.

My understanding of identity was originally formulated by Judith Butler's (b. USA, 1956-) book Gender Trouble(1999) which argues that gender is constructed according to the mores of hetero-normative society.  For Butler gender is performative, a "copy of a copy" without origin that reiterates dominant ways of being (1999, p.93).  Her argument is not only applicable to gendered identity but all forms of being including class, nationality and ethnicity. Butler's theories on constructedness and performivity are foundational to my use of identity.

My reading of Gilles Deleuze (b. France, 1925-1995) has expanded my understanding of identity. Identity is normatively understood as a complete and fixed state of being, but Deleuze argues that this is illusory (2010, p.126), that identity is a product of representation which "constitutes a particularly restricted form of thinking and acting, working according to fixed norms" (2010, p.228). Instead of the subject as simply being Deleuze suggests the subject in a continuous state of becoming, located in a dynamic, evolving, reactionary and on-going state of production (2010, p.27). Deleuze's version of the subject located in a constant process of construction and becoming will inform my interpretations of artworks. Deleuze's book Difference & Repetition (1994) outlines his philosophies concerning difference and becoming which are conceived as the antidotes to the western focus on identity and being (p.25). Difference is the catalyst for the subject'sconstantly evolving state of existence (2010, p.75).

Traditionally difference is linked to resemblance in relation to identity. However Deleuzian difference does not rely on sameness, but on "difference-in-itself", the internal singularity of each object, event, moment, perception, conception or individual, without reference to any other (2010, p.75). Deleuzian difference-in-itself releases difference from domination by sameness and identity and challenges traditional ontological categorizations such as gender or class (2010, p.76). Deleuzian difference-in-itself and becoming provide tools to describe my artworks and the challenges they produce for identity.

Butler, J. (1999) Gender Trouble, London & New York: Routledge.

Salih, S. & Butler, J. eds. (2004) The Judith Butler Reader, Oxford: Blackwell. 

Parr, A. The Deleuze Dictionary, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.