STATEMENT
My sculptures and participatory works explore body maintenance and the intimate collectivity of public space. By re-purposing and re-orienting familiar and mundane materials—socks with holes, generic tissue boxes, bathroom stall components, towel dispensers, and drop-ceiling tiles—my sculptures draw attention to bodily rituals and needs that often go unmentioned in art contexts. In this moment of tremendous personal and political division about who belongs where and what bodies can or cannot do, I am curious: Can we relate to each other despite individual differences through a collective language of care?
This work is shaped by an interest in the history of queer archival practices and queer history. Post-AIDS, preserving queer culture has meant archiving even the most mundane or domestic objects as relics. Such relics function to mourn the dead, but also to imagine a queer futurity. These questions of archiving and domesticity are particularly relevant in a political climate that positions same-sex desire and gender nonconformity as simultaneously normal and vulnerable- populations that should be treated as “equals” and yet need to be “protected.”
Because the subject matter of my work is inspired by how people relate in personal and public space, it is important that the work literally touches or has touched people. Thus, the sculptures I make are often participatory or interactive. By inviting visitors to fold socks in the gallery, answer a public telephone in a bathroom stall, or sit inside an upright bathtub, I create opportunities for audiences to physically engage with the works. My sculptures foster communal domestic spaces and allow visitors to share their own histories with infrastructures of daily life.
Bathrooms, multi-layered sites of function, pleasure and violence, have long been source material for my practice. They have received widespread attention in the past few years from legislative measures restricting trans people from using public facilities to best cleaning practices for health concerns related to the pandemic. My most recent work responds to how people navigate bodily need fulfillment in these volatile political times. This work consists of site-specific installations utilizing architectural elements from body maintenance sites such as restrooms and doctor’s offices.
My sculptures and participatory works explore body maintenance and the intimate collectivity of public space. By re-purposing and re-orienting familiar and mundane materials—socks with holes, generic tissue boxes, bathroom stall components, towel dispensers, and drop-ceiling tiles—my sculptures draw attention to bodily rituals and needs that often go unmentioned in art contexts. In this moment of tremendous personal and political division about who belongs where and what bodies can or cannot do, I am curious: Can we relate to each other despite individual differences through a collective language of care?
This work is shaped by an interest in the history of queer archival practices and queer history. Post-AIDS, preserving queer culture has meant archiving even the most mundane or domestic objects as relics. Such relics function to mourn the dead, but also to imagine a queer futurity. These questions of archiving and domesticity are particularly relevant in a political climate that positions same-sex desire and gender nonconformity as simultaneously normal and vulnerable- populations that should be treated as “equals” and yet need to be “protected.”
Because the subject matter of my work is inspired by how people relate in personal and public space, it is important that the work literally touches or has touched people. Thus, the sculptures I make are often participatory or interactive. By inviting visitors to fold socks in the gallery, answer a public telephone in a bathroom stall, or sit inside an upright bathtub, I create opportunities for audiences to physically engage with the works. My sculptures foster communal domestic spaces and allow visitors to share their own histories with infrastructures of daily life.
Bathrooms, multi-layered sites of function, pleasure and violence, have long been source material for my practice. They have received widespread attention in the past few years from legislative measures restricting trans people from using public facilities to best cleaning practices for health concerns related to the pandemic. My most recent work responds to how people navigate bodily need fulfillment in these volatile political times. This work consists of site-specific installations utilizing architectural elements from body maintenance sites such as restrooms and doctor’s offices.
BIO
Emmett Ramstad’s sculpture and participatory works investigate the infrastructure of daily life by modifying the scale and function of familiar household objects. Ramstad lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has exhibited artworks nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Rochester Art Center. He is a recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including a Franconia Sculpture Park Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists, a Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Next Step Award, a Forecast Public Art Research and Development Grant, and an Art and Change grant from the The Leeway Foundation. He has performed in productions by The BodyCartography Project, made costumes and sets for five touring contemporary dance productions and has curated and organized numerous gallery shows. His work is in collections at The Minnesota Museum of American Art, The Weisman Art Museum, University of Michigan Library, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, MCAD and Second State Press. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Art at University of Minnesota.
Emmett Ramstad’s sculpture and participatory works investigate the infrastructure of daily life by modifying the scale and function of familiar household objects. Ramstad lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and has exhibited artworks nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Rochester Art Center. He is a recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including a Franconia Sculpture Park Fellowship, Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists, a Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Next Step Award, a Forecast Public Art Research and Development Grant, and an Art and Change grant from the The Leeway Foundation. He has performed in productions by The BodyCartography Project, made costumes and sets for five touring contemporary dance productions and has curated and organized numerous gallery shows. His work is in collections at The Minnesota Museum of American Art, The Weisman Art Museum, University of Michigan Library, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, MCAD and Second State Press. He is currently a lecturer in the Department of Art at University of Minnesota.