Andria Nyberg Forshage and Ruby Nilsson: CHASER

On Thursday 29 August, Andria Nyberg Forshage and Ruby Nilsson are present at Index for an evening based on their ongoing research.

With seduction and guile, we invite you to an evening intervention reflecting on the very desires that have brought us to where we are. Following their collaborative work on trans (fem) aesthetics, Ruby Nilsson and Andria Nyberg Forshage turn their attention to “the chaser.” Indicating someone with a certain interest in trans women or other trans people, sexual or otherwise, the chaser forms a liminal yet integral figure shaping how trans lives are seen, displayed, loved, imagined, and objectified.

CHASER looks to turn the gaze around, investigating the terms and power dynamics of the greater visibility awarded to trans people in arts and culture in recent years.

Seek Chase Penetrate
by Ruby Nilsson

Through the style of supernatural fiction heavily inspired by the project SCP* (“Special Containment Procedures”, or the project’s backronym motto – “Secure, Contain, Protect”), Ruby Nilsson debunks the chaser as if a supernatural specimen. Using her textual scalpel to cut him open, she stumbles upon his body and mind with Lovecraftian horror and sublime wonder.

*SCP is a fictional organization with a shared fictional universe responsible for capturing, containing, and studying various paranormal, supernatural, and other mysterious phenomena (known as “anomalies” or “SCPs”) The collaborative writing project includes elements of many genres such as horror, science fiction, and urban fantasy.

All Watched Over by Chasers of Loving Grace
by Andria Nyberg Forshage

For the first time, this prelude to an imaginary exhibition brings together many major names in modern and contemporary art under the banner of “the chaser”.

Throughout Western cultural history, admirers – artists and curators, researchers and sexologists, lovers and haters – have turned their gaze toward trans women and other trans and gender-variant people.

Using various artistic means at their disposal, such chasers have drawn on images primarily of trans femininity to augment their own careers, playing on stigmatised forms of desire while bringing public attention to marginal and suitably photogenic trans feminine lives.

Rarely, however, has this genre dared to speak its own name. “All Watched Over by Chasers of Loving Grace” aims to change that. As a performative exhibition, it gestures effeminately toward a comprehensive overview of chaser art.

(Poster by Ruby Nilsson and Jacob Habinc)

This event is part of the program of activations for the exhibition Vaginal Davis: HOFPFISTEREI. More information about the exhibition here and about the program here.

This exhibition has been developed in collaboration with Moderna Museet in Stockholm, as part of the exhibition Vaginal Davis: Magnificent Product. The museum presents a major retrospective of Vaginal Davis’s work while, in parallel, Index is the locus for research on her text production. Vaginal Davis’s solo exhibition Magnificent Product is initiated by Moderna Museet and extends across several locations in Stockholm: Moderna Museet, Nationalmuseum, Accelerator, Index – The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Tensta konsthall and MDT (Moderna Dansteatern). Each institution highlights a different aspect of Vaginal Davis’s expansive practice.