STUFFED: a puppet porno

Special Residency
Written By Elsewhere Living Museum & Artist Residency

STUFFED re-contextualizes functionality through a queer lens by playing with heteronormative assumptions of pleasure, its derivation, and the ways and which it is depicted for others to consume. Through set, costume, and puppet design, Rae and Thea set out to explore notions of bodies and spaces and the ways in which they can interact with each other while offering playful alternatives to functionality, delight, and desire. 

Also shame. Shame about bodies, genitals, orifices, phalluses, assumptions, and the social conditioning to create that shame. STUFFED defies expectations and banishes the shame!

Elsewhere is no stranger to disrupting expectations around labels and their assumed meaning as it is exemplified in the space itself through playing with and redefining what it means to be a museum. Elsewhere questions functionality through repurposing objects, spaces, and materials to take on new meaning and functions. This place also holds value in things that no longer retain the function that they were assigned to have, shifting ideas about value and where it is derived.

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Thea Cohen
Thea Cohen

Thea Cohen (she/her) | Productions Manager 2020-2021

In her creative practice, Thea places an emphasis on process and experimentation and likes to learn by doing. She has a background in multimedia installation, furniture making, and methods of fabrication including woodworking, welding, and machine sewing. Her creations utilize various combinations of set, prop, puppet & costume design, video, animation, sculpture, projection, and performance. Thea enjoys non-linear storytelling and is especially interested in the distortions that occur within repetitions across materials, scale, and time. She is fascinated with functionality (or the lack there of) regarding the ways in which physical characteristics influence movement and provoke assumptions around how to inhabit space. Community is an integral part of Thea’s life, and she is always looking for ways to collaborate in all aspects of creating and living.

Rae Red
Rae Red

Rae Red (they/them) encourages the radical act of laughter in the face of darkness by translating everyday realities into performance and play. Their work exposes the magic and wonder within our daily functions, from the wizardry of sight and color theory, to the way water invisibly keeps our lives flowing smoothly like a ghost within the walls. They explore subjects that are universal like blood pumping through veins, while bringing light our own mortality and to the death that is continuously occurring around us. Through performances across the United States Rae Red investigates topics that unite viewers by exposing commonalities while examining the disparate facets within them. They have presented their work in every type of space imaginable from dive bars and the backs of donut shops to The Museum of Human Achievement, High Concept Labs, Cucalorus Stage Festival, and The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History. They received a BA from Bard College and an MFA from Towson University’s Theatre Arts Program.

Elsewhere Living Museum & Artist Residency
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