This is also an elevator : compulsory assimilation in academia and choosing personal disclosure and anti-production art philosophies as an antidote

This paper is an autobiographical account of the writer’s experience throughout her two years of graduate study. It is a chronological, prose-poetry retelling of the events that befell her, supplemented by art and cultural theories. Eight chapters include an introduction to Allan Kaprow’s theory of avant-guard life-like art, praise for art about mundane everyday experiences, an introduction to queer archiving, an overview of the writer’s multimedia artwork, and a critical analysis of the professional academic artist persona. Misogyny in the arts, academic jargon, technical proficiency in western art modalities, and impersonal material studies are problematized. There is a call for action to include the personal, specific, and odd parts of one’s life into the field of art in order to steer away from the mute and sterile impulses of western art historical traditions. This paper concludes that art is primarily a feeling; a psychic, emotional experience—and this way, it can exist outside of art materiality and art commodity markets.