How do we reclaim traditions of home for our queer futures? Artists Leilah Babirye and Chiffon Thomas and host Gemma Rolls-Bentley discuss reconstructing the self, the permanence of lineage, and the historic weight of the heirlooms and materials they gravitate to in their sculptures.

Chiffon Thomas is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles, incorporating embroidery, collage, drawing, and sculpture to explore the self as split, fractured, and transforming. Thomas contends with the crafted body in his work, examining wider issues of gender, race, and sexuality. Thomas holds an MFA from Yale University and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work is currently on view at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum for his first solo museum exhibition, The Cavernous, and at the Hammer Museum for Made in LA 2023. Learn more about his practice at www.chiffonthomas.com. Find him on IG @c.chronicles

The multidisciplinary practice of Leilah Babirye (b. 1985, Kampala) transforms everyday materials into objects that address issues surrounding identity, sexuality and human rights. The artist fled her native Uganda to New York in 2015 after being publicly outed in a local newspaper. In spring 2018, Babirye was granted asylum with support from the African Services Committee and the NYC Anti-Violence Project. Composed of debris collected from the streets of New York, Babirye’s sculptures are woven, whittled, welded, burned and burnished. Her choice to use discarded materials in her work is intentional – the pejorative term for a gay person in the Luganda language is ‘ebisiyaga’, meaning ‘sugarcane husk’. ‘It’s rubbish,’ explains Babirye, ‘the part of the sugarcane you throw out.’ Learn more about her practice at www.stephenfriedman.com/artists/66-leilah-babirye. Find her on IG @babiryesculptor

Chiffon's piece Rosenwald is made of cement blocks, bible skins, and thread, see the work here.

Leilah's piece Nansamba O'we Ngabi from the Kuchu Antelope Clan is one of three works in the exhibition, made of glazed ceramic and found objects, see the work here.

A full transcript of the episode is available here.

This podcast series is produced by the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art. Dreaming of Home is on view September 7–January 7, 2024. Learn more about the show at leslielohman.org/exhibitions/dreaming-of-home

Show music: Fantasy Island Obsession by Tom Rasmussen ft. Kai-Isaiah Jamal

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