JULZ KELLEY

LIFE OF A FAGDYKE

Sandplay documents a story of queer hyperindependence shaped by white, American, individualist, conservative bootstrap culture. It uses miniatures, figurines, and objects in a sandbox to examine how Julz was trained to be self-sufficient and adult-like as a child, even while maintaining an expansive queer imagination. An older self reflects on these experiences, deconstructs norms, and examines their own patterns. In some sand trays, an older non-binary dyke protector appears to intervene when there’s trouble, redirecting younger parts and guiding them away from what no longer serves them.

The work becomes a fever-dream journey into a space where memory, the conscious, and the unconscious intermingle. Survival strategies in the trays are understood not as heroic virtues, but as intelligent and creative adaptations to social conditions that unfairly demanded an individual make it on their own.