Danica Drago
they/them
Danica Drago is an interdisciplinary artist and arts facilitator living and working in Toronto/Tkaronto. Through the creation of functional, sculptural, and wearable forms in ceramic, metal, and various material outcomes, Danica’s work as an object and tool-maker is drawn towards investigating the codified queerness of objects, and embodied experiences of trans/gender expansiveness beyond the limits of binaries.
Danica has led an active studio teaching practice for the past six years working with youth and adults of various ages and abilities at the Gardiner Museum, Jewish Community Centre, and Harbourfront Centre. They have also developed independent site-specific clay and tool-making workshops with XPACE Cultural Centre, Jumblies Theatre, Toronto Public Library, Maker Festival, Charlie’s Freewheels, and The Linden School. They have exhibited work in Toronto and New York, and are currently a Craft & Design artist-in-residence in the Ceramic Studio at Harbourfront Centre.
"My practice is a hybridized material exploration of object and tool-making; I make sculptural, functional and wearable work about exploring the embodied experiences of queer and trans expansiveness (usually out of ceramics and metal, but not exclusively). The pieces shown are from a collection called Porous Binaries; a series of wearable sculptural works that challenges how we socially organize our ideas around gender, sexuality, and human biology. Jewelry has long been an instrumental from of adornment, expression and identification of our human bodies and experiences, yet so much of it carries historical and cultural connotations that reinforce the idea that our bodies are bound by binary structures. By constructing a new wearable visual vernacular, I was interested in representing multidimensional trans and queer experiences of embodiment, and using unconventional materials to talk about the social, medical, and structural conditions/constructs that shape those expressions and perceptions."
“I’m still figuring out what Queerphoria means to me, but right now I would describe it as the feeling of creating a space or momentary lapse of time to transcend and exist freely of fixed-gendered interpretations and expectations. For me, these moments are often felt in the intimate space of daydreams, where my body feels limitless. I also experience it through connection and resonance with other queer and trans people in my life/on the internet, and through those who have come before me.
While many perceptions of queerness rely on “visibility” and visual representations, some of my most profound experiences of Queerphoria have come from exploring music and sound. In an interview with Sophia the Robot, the late electronic musician and prolific sculptor of sound, SOPHIE, described the purpose of music simply but beautifully as “interpreting and reforming vibrations..sending and receiving vibrations.” I’ve been able to tangibly access blissful moments of Queerphoria and feeling grounded in my physical body through the vibrational power of music and sound. The music of queer and trans artists, like SOPHIE and Arca, have been huge influences to me in my own creative material practice.”
What does [queerphoria] mean to you? This can be something felt, experienced, or made.
PB. 010010010010. Porcelain, coloured ceramic stain. 21.5”x13”x1.5”. 2022
“I make things in many separate components; leaving shapes ambiguous in their nature so that I can freely determine their positions and orientations when the time is right to assemble more solid connections.
Clay is continually fascinating to me, because it is a material that is transforming throughout the making process. The sculptural parts shift, shrink and change colour at every stage of sculpting and firing, and I’m constantly rearranging them in different configurations until the materials and I have settled on how they will be transfigured.
Sponge is also a very intimate material for me, because of its physical and metaphorical porosity. There is a very cellular, body-like quality to this synthetic tissue that is wonderfully rhyzomatic and queer to me. It is made up of presence and absence of space, creating many complex divergent paths, and is both structurally strong and vulnerable simultaneously. It does not have a fixed state, and it presents many opportunities for expressive fluidity. The more time I spend working with this material the more I’ve been able to meditate on how much it relates to my trans/ non-binary body, giving me a soft space to explore the formation of my identities.”
What does being queer mean to you in relation to your material choices? Is it something you consider?
“I would say it can be both.
The maker may not always be afforded the safety or freedom to outwardly explore queer subject matter in their work or in their lives. But I think if what we make is ultimately a reflection of how we interpret and perceive our own experiences and environments, then anything that is made of me must also be intrinsically queer itself. If I’m existing out in the world and other people don’t know who I am or anything about me, I'm still queer even if that part of my identity is not inherently legible to everyone all of the time. In that way, I think the work can also be queer without having to broadcast itself as such.”
Is the work queer because the maker is queer, or is it queer because the subject matter is queer?
PB. XYXXYXYYXY. Porcelain, coloured ceramic stain, nylon rope, thermal plastic. 22”x14”x1.5” 2022
“I think another part of my identity that may influence my studio practice even more directly than my queerness or transness is my neurodivergence (I have ADHD). This has a huge impact on my thinking and making process, which is very intuitive, non-linear and open-ended. I don’t usually sketch or plan fully-realized wearable forms before I start making them, which allows me to make fluid decisions and explore multiple outcomes for each work. Often starting with materials in my hands, I figure out very slowly through sculpting and carving how shapes will emerge before I’ve even decided on colour or how they’ll fit together compositionally. The ceramic processes I use in my work can make it difficult to determine how the parts will look until after they have been fully fired; colours change drastically, parts shrink and warp (and sometimes crack), and glaze shifts and melts in precarious ways. Many aspects of these processes can be unpredictable, which poses challenges but also opportunities to be in collaborative dialogue with my materials instead of trying to exert control over them. I think about and make works in many separate component pieces, which I leave loose so that I can move and swap the parts around, sometimes firing them multiple times, until I settle on a final configuration.
These dynamics of my making practice have offered me a space where I can play, experiment and fail freely. It’s also a practice of being in relationship with myself to learn how my own queer/trans embodiment is paralleled in the ways I engage with material processes. “
What role does your studio practice play in your identity- if at all?
When creating your work, do you consider the relationship your object has with the viewer?
“In making work about and for queer bodies, I am constantly considering how other queer and trans people could be witnessed by my work. The scale, colour and material decisions I make are motivated by intentionally transgressing the binary conventions of body adornment, and celebrating the bodies that defy them. In my role as an arts facilitator, I have the incredible privilege of learning from and creatively mentoring many queer teens. I think about them a lot, and what it was like to navigate my own queerness at their age with little to no representation of queerness around me. They inspire me to make things that validate their joys, experiences and identities.”
We've asked you a lot of our questions... What is one thing you would like to share?
PB.00011. Porcelain, coloured ceramic stain, surgical steel, epoxy resin. 3.25”x 3”x 1.10”. 2022
“I have a sweet gremlin baby-cat named Mona, and I am obsessed with her.”