Panoptic Gaze, 2024 photographed by Janina Wagner

Foucault uses the Panopticon as a metaphor to describe how modern societies exert control over individuals. He argues that “the panoptic gaze is a form of disciplinary power that extends beyond prisons into schools, hospitals, factories, and even everyday life.” {Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison, 1975).

The idea of a silent unknown overseer in society such as the government that subconsciously confronts all aspects of life. 

I went in with these thoughts: We live in a society that dictates every move we make without acknowledging our humanity. We've become cogs in the wheel of all the horrors of the world.

I’d like to begin by saying that this is my experience and mine alone. I am only one person. I am privileged compared to many. I also still feel pain. 

As a queer person growing up in the South of the U.S. I felt extremely unsafe in my body and my sexuality In public. Often I internalized that. 

I felt like I was always watched, there was an entity I couldn’t pin point that was forever looking.

Thus, the concept of the Panoptic gaze was conceived. I sought to convey that feeling to the viewer, compelling them to reflect on their actions and perspectives. Were they a part of this gaze? Did they also feel the gaze?

I’m surprised at how bold people can be when they think no one is looking, or how they dehumanize the person who is looking.

I could feel every pair of eyes that entered the gallery. Every footstep vibrated my bones within that box.

There were several times when I could see a person staring at me from across the room because of the reflection in the glass, as if they wanted to look but didn’t want to be seen.

On the first night, a person snapped their fingers to get my attention, treating me as if I were their pet or an object of entertainment. They needed my gaze.

The second day the gallery was mostly empty. There were times when I was completely alone. A lot of looking at myself in the reflection of the glass above.

I began reflecting on the privilege I have that allows me to make this work. What it means to be able to communicate these feelings. While, queer people around the world are dying because of the panoptic gaze. I sat with that for a long time—so long that I found myself crying within that small frame, as if I had escaped reality and become my emotions. In those moments, nothing else mattered.

The second day I felt the most alone. 

As if I was the only thing in the entire gallery. I’d stared at my face for so long, I’d stared at the other works for so long, and the minutes and hours blurred.

This is also the day I left feeling the most unsafe.

And when I did not give into this effort the person forcefully tapped on the glass above my face, right between my eyes.

I was shocked. How could a human do this to another human, or even to an animal? How could someone imagine that the best way to get another person's attention is to tap at them between the eyes? Not to mention the fact that I was, in essence, a piece of art—how bold on so many levels.

It struck me to my core. I didn’t react, I just laid there. I wasn’t going to let a bully ruin the message I was attempting to convey. In fact what I didn’t realize was someone would outwardly exemplify exactly what I wanted the work to say. 

This person wanted autonomy over my work, my gaze, and my body. 

There was no way I was going to allow that. 

I was shocked, but I also wondered: How could someone enter an esteemed gallery in Berlin and not only touch a piece of artwork but also attempt to publicly unsettle an artist?

This incident shifted my focus from thinking about just America to considering the entire world. How could this occur in one of the most progressive art scenes globally? Simple: despite what I might not have understood before, bigots exist everywhere. And my work brought out the gross behavior of a few of them.

"The oppositional gaze is a way of looking that refuses to accept the dominant, often racist and sexist, visual culture. It is a refusal to be passively objectified and to challenge the gaze that seeks to control and marginalize."

— bell hooks, "Black Looks: Race and Representation" (1992)

In the morning of the second day a person circled the box. Walked around the entirety of the box four times. It was an attempt to capture my gaze. I did not give in. It was a point for me to not acknowledge the gaze of the viewer.

It’s taken me a week to write this next part. My heart just didn’t want to revisit this. 

In the evening of the second day when I thought I was about to leave the box. Four figures surrounded me. I didn’t look up but I could feel their presence and see their reflections in the glass when I moved my body from left to right.

In the time that I’ve lived in Berlin, this is the point in which I’ve felt the most unsafe. 

Why were they there so long?

What were they saying in another language?

Why were they laughing?

Why had a scenario like this not crossed my mind?

I felt as if I was dazed. drunk. unconscious. 

At this point in the day I began to enter a dream-like state and now I’d entered a nightmare. 

What were these people doing?

What did they want with my body?

Is this what I wanted my work to say?

Sometimes the art isn’t fulfilled until the very end. Sometimes the work you make has a beginning but not end or inbetween you just know it has to be made. 

My heart ached as I relived every instance when my body had been taken advantage of, each time I had said no but the thing I feared most still happened.

After the second day I was exhausted. My body was weak. The only thing I wanted was to be held by my love.

I went into the third day with a guard. I went in with the thought something might happen like this again. But also went in stronger because I knew I’d survived the day before. 

Sunday was easier on my heart. 

Sunday was my last time in the box for the foreseeable future.

My two closest friends in Berlin, who are both trans, were there to see me off for my final time in the box.

On my last day, I was enveloped in love. I realized that the work not only highlighted the negative aspects but also celebrated the strength and beauty of being trans. My heart felt restored. I thought about all of the queer people before me that had shaped the path I could now walk on and those who gave up so much to become their true selves. I thought about every person that supported me when I came out as nonbinary.

On that same day, a parent and a young child, who was probably around six years old, came into the gallery. The child wore basketball shorts, a backwards hat, and had long hair. I mention this because they reminded me of a younger, closeted version of myself.

Initially, the parent and child came over, looked around, and walked through the gallery. I thought I’d never see them again, but to my surprise, I spotted them several more times throughout the day. They seemed curious and somewhat confused, yet in an intriguing way. They always observed from a distance, often from halfway across the room.

I wish I could have known what the child was thinking.

However, just knowing that this seemingly queer child was witnessing work I am creating to shape our future was enough for me.

Perhaps I stirred someone’s awareness and sparked a ripple, encouraging them to pause and reflect on the importance of contemplating our actions before acting on impulse. It’s vital to consider the effects our behavior has on others. While Foucault’s concept of the panoptic gaze will inevitably persist, what truly matters is staying authentic to ourselves despite its pervasive influence.

"The future is an open space of possibilities, where the vision of a better world is based on the affirmation of the self and the rejection of normative constraints. Queer utopia is about imagining and striving for a world that transcends the limitations imposed by heteronormative and capitalist structures."
— José Esteban Muñoz, "Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity" (2009)