Sasha Ballon (she/they)

I am a visual artist and tree surgeon based in Glasgow. My practice is the meeting point of craft and trade. I use collage to incorporate moving image, performance, textiles, installation and sculpture. I place craft as a site of resistance: inherently queer for its potential to upend categorical ways of making. I bring the physical act of craft into a digital context through manipulation of archival video. The warp and weft on the loom mirrors how I approach collaging with moving image.

I use weaving and textiles within my work as a metaphor for physical strength in softness.I combine welding, chainsaw wood carvings, and tapestry weavings to compare soft and industrial processes. My chainsaw carvings take on figurative qualities while never being exact replicas. It’s within my performances where the figurative objects come into being and life.

I use a world-making approach to build characters which I place into environments to explore. Within my performances I engage with narratives of fear/desire/pleasure/power. My performances are movement collages which use the body as an extension of sculpture. The collages follow a looping structure which uses failure and dysfunctional movement patterns to test the limits of what the body is capable of.