Be–longing: Proximity, Sweat, and Duration is an ongoing project that plays with, and performs within, the ontological mess that belonging interjects into the attempt to stabilize identity. It is a series of gestures that use the idea of belonging to dislodge you and me from the political forces that language, performance, and façades have on our unconscious. Is there a place to build one’s identity that exists between speaking and listening?

Image: Matthew Metzger, The Be-longing Project (The Shell, both halves), 2018, acrylic and oil on panel, size contingent on installation