The colonial campaign extends its reach to our bodies along the lines of race, gender and sexuality. In response, we have an innate desire to reassert sovereignty over our corporeal selves. In the face of exclusion and sterilisation, we crave to unearth our boundless possibilities. Thus, I purify myself through the perverse theatre of body modification.

In The Wounds of Becoming, a dressmaker and piercer don me in armour. I am pierced through flesh across my breasts, biceps and lower back before being embellished in a feathered, white and blood red gossamer gown. I am ironclad, braced by the metal affixed to my skin and bear witness to the rebirth that occurs through this operation of impalement.

The mask I adorn and the armour I choose to wear are instruments of transcendence. They aid in my self-discernment and are balms both visual and visceral.

My final form is the one I created for myself. Through a performance of deconstruction and disembodiment, I construct, I embody, I am.