DXARTS GAllery Research Exhibition 2026
Shedding Senses
Ongoing Research Kinetic Sensing Scultpures & Performance
2026
Maria Thrän
University of Washington
I was always drawn to working with latex as a material — the sense of it, the haptic, the transparency, the elasticity, the sensuality of something so thin and almost skin-like. At the same time, I was drawn to the idea that it is the sap of a tree, a substance that protects against infection and seals a wound to heal. I begin with the material intelligence of the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), a technology that has never been fully achieved or synthetically reproduced by humans and has therefore been heavily extracted, especially by the Western world, for use.
What does it mean to create with that materiality as a white queer artist and to approach latex not as a symbol, but within the tension of extractive histories that demand accountability?
What does it mean to enter a relation with a material, to perform with it, without pretending not to extract, but staying with that tension?
How can relational infrastructures reorganize exposure without eliminating tension?
This research is my ongoing doctoral research, where I develop multi sensing system: body extentions to transmitt and recieve, soft speakers, antennas, and scultpures.
This is a beginning, a way of thinking through a performance series I developed with latex, and through small rituals. I staged them in the wetlands in Seatte to experience and question my relation to non-human entities, to my own body, and to its gaze.
