Mia Roberts
I make sculpture, installation and performance that confronts the socio-economic, environmental and technological structures of contemporary rural life. Through a range of approaches I satirise local cultural clichés to critique systems of authority, and investigate the experience of those situated outside of positions of power.
The resultant work expresses how trauma and vulnerability are masked by patriarchal success metrics encoded in the professional workplace, such as "efficiency", "targets" and "productivity".
As somebody who was socialised as male and experienced identity repression, coming out as a transgender woman after bouts of homelessness and substance abuse, I have direct understanding of how systems fail people both inside and outside of normative identities. These experiences inform how I process and share my experiences.
Through performative masculinity and repetitive absurd actions, I attempt to highlight the futility in continuing to embody a structural attitude that is antithetical to healing.
Lived Experience
My practice has been informed by time spent navigating alcoholism and addiction whilst growing up on the North Wales Coast. The lived experience of sleeping rough and struggling to come to terms with body dysmorphia, and navigating precarious sex work to survive informs gendered material exploration and tensions through material .
