Big Head, Small Neck
Through a residency at The Work Room in Glasgow, kloetzel&co. in collaboration with UK writer/visual artist Rose Ruane began work in 2015 on Big Head/Small Neck, a work that explores the medical and social manipulations of gendered and transgendered bodies in the past two centuries. Based on portrayals of the ‘hysteric’ female body at the infamous 19th century Salpetrière Psychiatric Hospital as well as images of transgendered bodies from Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sexuality, Big Head, Small Neck was commissioned as a stage work for MainStage Dance 2016 at the University of Calgary and as a site-based work for the 2016 Trans Trans exhibit at the Nickle Galleries. The exhibit and performance were a component of the Gender and Sexual Security Symposium that was part of the 2016 Canadian Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences held at the University of Calgary.