Virtual Stories That Object Tell
BodyWork
Tristan Bernardo
found denim, 3ds Max, Mudbox
2020
This work is about how culture has torn apart my perception of myself. Like the denim, I feel thrown out as if no one would care about me. I found the jeans throughout the streets of Lethbridge. At first, the project was a quilt about being biracial and how I feel stuck in between two cultures, never fitting into either. I have felt my experiences with culture have been unique to how other biracial individuals feel. When it came to being a part of the puzzle that is community and culture, I felt like a piece of the puzzle that didn’t belong. This thought process is what brought me to explore the project further. It became a jacket that I could embrace myself in; the aspect of embracement was something I had to explore after years of pretending to fit into a mould of an average straight white male. This project is about reclaiming my identity. This is me saying, “This is who I am: a transgender pansexual Whasian Canadian (White and Asian), and I want everyone to know.” To come out during a pandemic is kind of a wired thing. How do I tell and show people?
My challenge is in presenting myself with the jacket. The solution was to rebuild my body in 3d Max from head to toe. But the construction of the jacket was much more complicated than anything else. Being a digital artist, sculpting with fabric presented a new medium. I avoided making the jacket look like anything manufactured. If it did, I felt like it would be fitting the mould of what society says is or is not a jacket. Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong?
About Tristan Bernardo
Tristan Bernardo was born in Edmonton, Alberta and was raised in a secluded town in the country named Vegreville, Alberta. Vegreville is predominantly a Caucasian town. Tristan is biracial. He is Filipino and Caucasian; however, Tristan is also a Pansexual and Transgender. Vegreville is also a town that does not approve of diversity. To say less, Tristan had a rough time growing up. Tristan was made to feel like they should reject their Asian heritage. They were known as “The Asian.” Growing up in a town where no one looked like Tristan became very difficult as he matured. Not only did no one look like them, but they also could not relate to anyone culturally and ideologically. From the age of ten, Tristan knew they were not straight. Tristan was bullied for the colour of his skin and, on top of that, his sexual orientation. By the time Tristan reached High School, it became a means to survive to suppress his Sexual orientation and preferred gender. From the moment Tristan entered high school, he felt that he was born into the wrong body. He always felt like a she. However, Tristan wanted to play sports. In the old-fashioned religious country town that he lived in to play for either a men’s or women’s basketball team as a transgender person would not be possible due to the school’s old policy of people of transgender and sports. Said rule was removed. However, the ideology was never removed from the minds of the players and coaches/management. It would have been impossible to be trans or gay or lesbian, or anything different than what was deemed normal to survive at said high school, let alone play sports on a team that represented the school. Tristan sacrificed his identity to survive and pursue his dreams. He pretended to be normal to fit in rather than be happy in his skin. Tristan is now in his third year at the University of Lethbridge, pursuing a degree in Fine Arts in New Media degree and a degree in Bachelor of Management in Marketing. Tristan’s upbringing has shaped his creativity. His identity as a child was suppressed and as an adult living in Lethbridge, Alberta, his expression of his identity comes out in his art.
