Deergoose is a ghost story romance set in our home. As it moves through the house, the project circles our relationship—mine and Diljá’s—as we struggle to make a home together.
After an assault, I bled through my sheets and onto the mattress and slept on that blood for months without realizing it. Ever since, in so many different beds, I check the mattress for traces of blood. The same ghosts are juxtaposed on each new mattress, in each new bedroom.
We build our space around this, and other ghosts. We arrange furniture around the truths that home has been the place each of us has felt most safe, most unsafe, most despicable, most cared for, most alone, most disgusting, most sexy. We struggle to design our domesticity when there are so few templates for queer homes marked by trauma. The photographs included are reenactments, fantasies, or documentation. Each picture acts as both spirit and our ongoing response to our haunted house.
In Iceland, the societal erasure of both non-heteronormative queer experiences and sexual trauma has driven the processing of both into the privacy of the home. The home is a loaded space, and often the only space where one can act and speak honestly in a city where everyone knows everyone.
This project began three years ago when I moved in with Diljá. It is titled after a nickname she calls me sometimes when we are alone. The only people who appear are us, our chosen family, and our relatives.
After an assault, I bled through my sheets and onto the mattress and slept on that blood for months without realizing it. Ever since, in so many different beds, I check the mattress for traces of blood. The same ghosts are juxtaposed on each new mattress, in each new bedroom.
We build our space around this, and other ghosts. We arrange furniture around the truths that home has been the place each of us has felt most safe, most unsafe, most despicable, most cared for, most alone, most disgusting, most sexy. We struggle to design our domesticity when there are so few templates for queer homes marked by trauma. The photographs included are reenactments, fantasies, or documentation. Each picture acts as both spirit and our ongoing response to our haunted house.
In Iceland, the societal erasure of both non-heteronormative queer experiences and sexual trauma has driven the processing of both into the privacy of the home. The home is a loaded space, and often the only space where one can act and speak honestly in a city where everyone knows everyone.
This project began three years ago when I moved in with Diljá. It is titled after a nickname she calls me sometimes when we are alone. The only people who appear are us, our chosen family, and our relatives.