Rebecca Jagoe

Lives and works in Monmouth, UK

Artist statement

I am a non binary, disabled, autistic artist. My work examines how Western ideas of gender, madness, illness, and identity intersect. I structure my practice around thematic projects, and in each project, my output might encompass objects, drawing, textiles, printed texts, performance, and workshops. My editing and teaching practices are inextricably linked with my making practice and and are an extension of my desire to build community and foster collective research through artistic practice. With an interest in clothing as an extension of bodies, often my work takes the form of garments which are simultaneously sculptural object, costume, and script for performance. Garments and textiles become archival, animated, become a part of my performing body, create new performing bodies. For some time, my exploration of garments was focussed upon the capitalist extraction of biological materials such as fur, silk, pearls, snakeskin, and I wished to create garments which became almost sentient, imbued with a form of agency that refused a subordination to being a commodity. More recently, I have been looking more at embroidery as a form of archiving processual knowledge, and the disabled and mad artists who have often used sewing both as a form of creation and also catharsis. My practice often references European pre-capitalist medicine and sciences – such as medieval lapidary lore; the Emission Theory of vision; or the use of textual amulets for healing. Recently this is with a...

Artwork