BIRDS OF A FEATHER

Feather Chiaverini is a Philadelphia-based artist who works at the intersection of craft, performance, and fiber art. He utilizes costumes and props to challenge notions of a fixed selfhood and explore more fluid states of being and becoming. With an eye toward the concept of "queer futurity,"[1] Chiaverini creates spaces of fantasy and play that address the challenges LGBTQ+ communities have faced and continue to face, while also leaving room for joy and celebration.

The artist takes an expansive approach to making, repurposing everyday materials (glitter, plastics, fabric scraps, fake pearls, and even ostrich feathers from industrial dusters) to disrupt the norms of what can be considered “serious” sculpture. Using the aesthetics of artifice, failure, DIY labor, and humor, Chiaverini imbues his work with the energy of theater costume shops and the hurried chaos of last-minute extensions and alterations happening behind the curtain.

Birds of a Feather features a new body of work that Chiaverini made in response to the legacy of Lexington’s queer past and its vibrant present. The hand-made costumes, watercolor paintings, and soft sculptures are inspired by photographs and ephemera the artist found in the Faulkner Morgan Archive (FMA), particularly images from pride festivals, parade floats, and holiday celebrations. The mermaid tail costumes, for instance, reference photographs from the 1980s featuring drag queens at the KET Sybarite Ball dressed in similarly themed garb. The original images, along with other archival selections from the FMA, are on view in the adjacent gallery.

For Chiaverini, mermaids function as a powerful metaphor for marginalized identities: neither fully human nor fully fish, they embody an in-betweenness that exists outside of rigid societal categories. He actively encourages visitors to try on his costumes (yes, really) -- an invitation to enter into a more imaginative world of performativity where transformation is both possible and necessary. In his own words: "I turn costumes into portals ... Whether using feathers, fiber, glitter, or trash, I build queer environments out of what’s left behind. These pieces are not fixed but always in a state of rehearsal, of becoming. I don’t aim to perfect—I aim to play, to dream, and to dress a body that hasn't arrived yet but is on its way."

[1] Footnote: very briefly, an idea that positions queerness as a utopian horizon of possibility: not just an identity in the present, but a force for imagining and building futures beyond the limits of our current world.