From a distance, Naama Tsabar’s flag Untitled (Without) (2020) is a long piece of fabric with a rectangular cut-out. Where we expect to see a flag, we instead see empty space. With closer inspection, the flag is made of white strips of fabric that are sewn together with coloured stitches. The colours derive from the LGBTQIA+ Progress Pride Flag, an updated version of the iconic LGBT Rainbow Flag. Untitled (Without) suggests that perhaps identity is far more subtle than the bold symbols and objects that attempt to represent us.

Tsabar’s installation includes a sonic work titled Ruptures (Opus 1) (2019), a live recording of Fielded, Rose Blanshei, and Wolf Weston singing, sighing, groaning, and breathing. Ruptures (Opus 1) explores the female musical voice as a “historically expressive anomaly, a place where a disruption of the patriarchal order happens under the cover of beauty and melody.” As the voices reverberate throughout the space alongside the flag, we are reminded to recognize the unseen and undefined that can hold power.

Tsabar’s practice fuses elements from sculpture, music, performance, and architecture. Her interactive works expose hidden spaces and systems, reconceive gendered narratives, and shift the viewing experience to one of active participation. She draws attention to the muted and unseen by propagating sound through space and sculptural form. Between sculpture and instrument, form, and sound, her work lingers on the intimate, sensual, and corporeal potentials within this transitional state. Collaborating with local communities of woman-identifying and gender non-conforming performers, Tsabar writes a new feminist and queer history of mastery.

Both works were presented in combination at Ballroom Marfa, Texas, in 2020. Ruptures (Opus 1) was written in collaboration with Rose Blanshei, Fielded, Naama Tsabar, and Wolf Weston, performed by Rose Blanshei, Fielded, and Wolf Weston, mixed and recorded by Bence Korompai.

Untitled (Without) variation 1 & Ruptures (Opus 1) starts every hour, duration: 22 mins

Proximity Music: Visceral Acts takes place from 7-9 April. Find out more here.