Dirt Wedding

Mythologies around the world include stories where a trickster figure interacts with dirt - usually to the amusement and disgust of the trickster's audience. These characters - Raven, Coyote, Legba, and Krishna - all use dirt to expose that culture's particular taboos and ultimately breaks new ground for what is acceptable.

What is dirt but matter out of place? A fried egg on a plate is food, but egg on someone's face is not. What is completely acceptable in one instance becomes filthy and unsettling in another context. Defining what is dirty in a society by default defines that which is taboo.

As American society has moved towards conservatism over the last decade, homosexuality has been represented as a threat to the institutions of marriage and culture. My dirt wedding was created in part to dismantle the rhetoric around marriage while simultaneously using humor and confusion to represent gay culture with a trickster's sensibilities.

Unable to marry another man, I instead married a pile of dirt in front of 60 people and re-enacted the trickster ritual of presenting something disgusting as acceptable. By inviting the guests to participate in the absurd celebration, the ceremony was brought to completion.