Gender Expression
Calgary, Alberta
2023—03
This is a compilation of photos taken in a photoshoot with Sean Dennie for the Calgary Animated Object Society. It exemplifies my work with clothing composition and costume.


Costume design and Modeling Collaboration

Roadrunner Vintage
Calgary, Alberta
2023—07
This was a 70s Western style photoshoot with Roadrunner Vintage, Calgary, AB. Photos by Shane T. Rex. These images exemplifies my work with clothing composition and costume.


Costume Design and Modeling Collaboration

Holding Permanence
Calgary, Alberta
2023—06
Holding Permanence explores my personal experience of being trans-non-binary and the ways in which aesthetics and adornment have impacted my experience of self on a day-to-day basis. Upon waking, I am introduced to myself again and again, transformed and requiring a new relationship to be built with myself that is unique to that day. Some days masculine, some days feminine, some days totally disconnected and disembodied, and others totally embodied and euphoric. This experience is transient, it is ever-changing, and the expectations to stay static and in one form feel like a million tiles, permanent and yielding to change. Seen here is a ceramic, chain-linked garment; each tile is uniquely made with fingerprints embossing their surfaces. The tiles are stitched together with copper chain links which support the piece when draped over the shoulders and clasped at the sides. Like armour that conceals and protects, it lays heavy on my shoulders unforgiving. The ceramic holds a permanence, an artifact of time, but here, the hard unforgiving material is made malleable, wrapping around, and remaining in dialogue with the body to which it was made for.

Holding Permanence - FULL VIDEO HERE
Mixed Media, Performance, Film

Thought & Memory
Calgary, Alberta
2023—03

Thought & Memory started as a curiosity; the curiosity of what it means to be a collector, what objects we collect and why, and how these objects contribute to our identity. Considering crows: they are creatures that collect objects, scavenge for food, and witness the world from varying vantage points. They are keen listeners and remember deeply; they can form long-lasting memories and bonds from a single experience. Much like the crow, I took to collecting as an embodied practice, exploring the resemblances between my ways and that of the black-coated being.

Ordinarily, we find ourselves in relation to objects and orient ourselves accordingly. They carry stories, have captivating aesthetic qualities, and bring charm or necessary functions to our daily lives; they maintain a sentimentality only known to us and us alone.

Contemplating this, I imagined how crows act as messengers, carrying objects with a sense of curiosity. I created a costume from my collected items to resemble all aspects of the crow. This process brought forth a natural mimicry – an association of the objects to the stories behind them. In the process of assembling, the objects called upon the past inherent to them. The crow mask, seen in three iterations of paper mache, plaster and cloth, and ceramic, recall the aesthetics of masks used during the 17th-century bubonic plague and the first and second World Wars. Further research explored these masks as symbols of death, resonating with my own personal mythologies found in my family of origin; that is, my grandparents' role in supporting death within the Jewish community.


A glint of fine light

The curious collector

Takes its perch then dives


Thought & Memory - FULL VIDEO HERE
Repurposed Leather, Ceramic

Temporality
Vancouver, British Columbia
2018—10

Temporality is a site-specific and temporary installation that explores the temporality of material and space. It explores the temporality of material and its change over time and in space. The piece was a 5-foot by 10-foot mosaic made of repurposed sandstone tiles. The form was taken to the beach in Vancouver, BC. Over the duration of a week, the piece was documented as it transformed and merged with the space due to the tides each day. After a week, the piece was removed and the documentary photos were stitched together using twine to emulate the original form. Using man-made materials, the piece was displayed as an off-site installation, representing its process of transformation through space.

Site-Specific Installation & Photography

Lex Hilderman
Calgary, Alberta