 |
| Don't Linger, Chaz Howkins, 2018, installation (toilet seats, pen, pencil on paper) |
 |
| Don't Linger - Detail |
 |
| Don't Linger - Detail |
 |
| Don't Linger - Detail |
 |
| Don't Linger - Detail |
Don’t Linger is an interactive installation of 27 toilet seats mounted to a wall; the viewer can lift up the lids of the toilet seats to reveal portrait drawings and text. The portraits are realistic pencil drawings of androgynous or gender non-conforming people and the text comes from their individual stories of anxiety or harassment they’ve experienced in public gendered spaces.
Don’t Linger questions the difference between gender identity and gender expression as well as the difference between gender and sex while critiquing the rigid segregation of gender in public spaces. The intention is to showcase the experiences of queer people navigating gendered spaces, particularly public bathrooms, in the hope of making a predominantly non-queer audience reconsider how they interact with members of the queer community within these spaces.