Papers by Tobaron Waxman
Hyperallergic, 2023
by Rhea Nayyar. The trans artist, curator, and singer unpacks the abstract regulations imposed on... more by Rhea Nayyar. The trans artist, curator, and singer unpacks the abstract regulations imposed on the body by gender binaries and geography.
Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects, 2024
Protocols #10, 2022
In Mechitza 7.1, using interactive audio, an elision is made between sacred/taboo space, and ‘eth... more In Mechitza 7.1, using interactive audio, an elision is made between sacred/taboo space, and ‘ethnically cleansed’ space as a way to interrogate the notion of border and binaries. Mechitza 7.1 reflects on the segregatory architecture, imposed by the state, that controls public and private space. Performance artist Tobaron Waxman collaborates with dancer Jesse Zaritt and composer James Hurley to create a motion-activated surround sound environment using field recordings that Waxman made in domestic spaces in the occupied territories of Palestine and in men’s prayer spaces from their Chassidic life in New York.
Chimera Project
TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 2022
Levush Project
TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 2019
The Levush Project is a series of originally designed hand-fabricated textiles consisting only of... more The Levush Project is a series of originally designed hand-fabricated textiles consisting only of syringes and pharmaceutical packaging for testosterone treatments Tobaron Waxman used since the early 2000s. The focus of the project is the research and development of these textiles, for creation of wearable artworks to be worn in choreographic and vocal performances.
TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 2014
This review looks at the work of five North American artists who tackle the prevailing social dem... more This review looks at the work of five North American artists who tackle the prevailing social demand upon transgender subjects to make a spectacle of their bodies. They reflect upon the body as a social site in order to resist and redeploy the scrutiny under which transgender is drawn. In film, dance, and visual and relational performance, the artists contest conventional social constructions of transgender and articulate existential possibility in ways that contribute to and echo the development of new ideas about embodiment.
PROTOCOLS, 2020
"Tobaron Waxman’s net-artworks animate trans and Jewish languages of embodiment in interactive wa... more "Tobaron Waxman’s net-artworks animate trans and Jewish languages of embodiment in interactive ways" https://prtcls.com/article/introducing-six-genders/ Protocols, issue 7: Six + Genders
Over a series of conversations about Tobaron Waxman’s current projects, which range from interdisciplinary performance to community-based archive activism, to international queer and trans curation, PROTOCOLS guest editor Ariel Goldberg and Waxman decided to show work that embraces the medium of the world-wide web and its attendant screens. What follows is a text co-written between Goldberg and Waxman, where quotes from interviews with Waxman are interspersed with their artist statements. Goldberg’s observations aim to contextualize three artworks on timelines of the techniques of both internet and trans life, asking where and how projects were first seen and made.
In this excerpt of an interview held in 2013, artist Tobaron Waxman discusses their artwork and i... more In this excerpt of an interview held in 2013, artist Tobaron Waxman discusses their artwork and its relationship to the politics and limits of transgender representation. Rather than relying on the body as the sign of trans, Waxman's recent performance work explores ways to evoke transformation , boundaries, and negotiations of power through a focus on gesture, movement, and the voice as a site of regulation and its resistance. This work also engages with the politics of nationalism and ethnicity, which Waxman sets in relation to other policing and transgressing of borders.
Transgender Studies Quarterly, 2019
The Levush Project is a series of originally designed hand-fabricated textiles consisting only of... more The Levush Project is a series of originally designed hand-fabricated textiles consisting only of syringes and pharmaceutical packaging for testosterone treatments Tobaron Waxman used since the early 2000s. The focus of the project is the research and development of these textiles, for creation of wearable artworks to be worn in choreographic and vocal performances.
Amidah
The Amidah is a central part of a prayer performed thee times daily, standing in silence. The pra... more The Amidah is a central part of a prayer performed thee times daily, standing in silence. The prayer consists of 18 steps, including a slight bowing movement, meant to indicate respect and reverence, that occurs when certain references in the prayer are privately recited.
Conference Presentations by Tobaron Waxman
Gender Diasporist
Performative lecture explaining Polish law pertaining to gender ID for trans persons, in relation... more Performative lecture explaining Polish law pertaining to gender ID for trans persons, in relation to Waxman's attempt to acquire Polish citizenship via jus sanguinis as an out trans person of Polish Jewish heritage, as a decolonial act of refusal. Curated by Tatiana Bazichelli for 'Artivism: Fighting Technologies & Systems of Domination', Disruption Network, Berlin.
Script for presentation at Moving Trans History Forward, Transgender archives Conference, Univers... more Script for presentation at Moving Trans History Forward, Transgender archives Conference, University of Victoria 2018
Books by Tobaron Waxman
Gender Diasporist: I do not sing the anthems of countries
Entangled Memories: Remembering the Holocaust in a Global Age, 2017
‘Entangled Memories’ opens up a range of perspectives by re-conceptualizing the practices, condit... more ‘Entangled Memories’ opens up a range of perspectives by re-conceptualizing the practices, conditions, and transformations of Holocaust remembrance within the framework of a dynamic global cultural, intellectual, literary and political history.
Post/Porn/Politics, 2009
Excerpts of 2006 interview of Tobaron Waxman by Tim Stüttgen, interpolated with excerpts from Wax... more Excerpts of 2006 interview of Tobaron Waxman by Tim Stüttgen, interpolated with excerpts from Waxman's presentation at Post/Porn/Politics Symposium (2006), Volksbühne theatre, Berlin. Includes many images of Waxman's photography.
This Is Not Art Therapy is a studio residency program template designed
to actively—and re/produc... more This Is Not Art Therapy is a studio residency program template designed
to actively—and re/productively—situate artists in community-based
AIDS service organizations (CBAO). This goal of re/productivity explores
the healing possibilities in making and responding to art without reliance on the pathologizing tendencies of "art therapy," and also seeks
to address the increasingly pressured issue of available workspace for artists in inner city environments. This Is Not Art Therapy tests this design at the Toronto People With AIDS Foundation (PWA), one of Canada’s oldest
and largest direct service organizations for people living with HIV/AIDS.
The program evolves from and responds to three threads: 1) the rich and
influential history of arts-based activism that first emerged in the battle
with HIV/AIDS during the initial decade of the pandemic (a critical phase
for recognizing and naming the virus, and the timely development and
dissemination of treatment); 2) PWA strategic planning in response to
urgent client-based requests for arts programming free of therapeutic attachments; and 3) my master’s research project, titled Disco Hospital, an
interrogation of the impact that queer perspectives can have on healing
processes and spaces.
Uploads
Papers by Tobaron Waxman
Over a series of conversations about Tobaron Waxman’s current projects, which range from interdisciplinary performance to community-based archive activism, to international queer and trans curation, PROTOCOLS guest editor Ariel Goldberg and Waxman decided to show work that embraces the medium of the world-wide web and its attendant screens. What follows is a text co-written between Goldberg and Waxman, where quotes from interviews with Waxman are interspersed with their artist statements. Goldberg’s observations aim to contextualize three artworks on timelines of the techniques of both internet and trans life, asking where and how projects were first seen and made.
Conference Presentations by Tobaron Waxman
Books by Tobaron Waxman
to actively—and re/productively—situate artists in community-based
AIDS service organizations (CBAO). This goal of re/productivity explores
the healing possibilities in making and responding to art without reliance on the pathologizing tendencies of "art therapy," and also seeks
to address the increasingly pressured issue of available workspace for artists in inner city environments. This Is Not Art Therapy tests this design at the Toronto People With AIDS Foundation (PWA), one of Canada’s oldest
and largest direct service organizations for people living with HIV/AIDS.
The program evolves from and responds to three threads: 1) the rich and
influential history of arts-based activism that first emerged in the battle
with HIV/AIDS during the initial decade of the pandemic (a critical phase
for recognizing and naming the virus, and the timely development and
dissemination of treatment); 2) PWA strategic planning in response to
urgent client-based requests for arts programming free of therapeutic attachments; and 3) my master’s research project, titled Disco Hospital, an
interrogation of the impact that queer perspectives can have on healing
processes and spaces.