A commentary on the realities of growing up visibly queer in Poole, Things That Feel Like A Kiss is artist Danni Miles’s latest project to address wider issues of intimacy and relationships.
Conceived as an art installation without a final artefact, the work uses art as a means to create connection and care. Working at Lighthouse Poole as part of the arts centre’s annual Sanctuary artist residency, Danni has been creating an immersive space in which people can come and participate in making workshops and share their experiences of and attitudes towards all aspects of human interaction.
“When you are someone who has had to explain every aspect of your being to everyone you meet, you know if people are going to find you confusing, especially in a small town and you’re visibly queer or visibly trans – people just don’t quite understand you,” explains Danni, who graduated with a First-Class degree in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Arts in 2024.
“But as people, all of us are fluid and watery and confusing, so I think it’s difficult to really quantify the outcome of a project like this because it’s specifically questioning the watery, messy, fluid parts of us that are just impossible to measure.”
Danni co-founded the Swan Club in Poole Park last spring for artists to connect with each other’s creativity and grow their local networks and has been working sporadically on Things That Feel Like A Kiss for two years. At its heart it questions the cultural hegemony of amatonormativity – the societal belief that exclusive long-term relationships are a universal goal and inherently more valuable than friendships or family bonds – by exploring how gender norms and heteronormative dynamics play into our understandings of intimacy and relationships.
“It started with a list I wrote on a napkin of things that felt to me the same as, or more intimate than, traditional romantic acts or sexual acts because I think that the person that I am has meant that it’s difficult for me to relate to sex and relationships and intimacy in the same way that most people do.
“In my opinion, it ends up trapping a lot of heterosexual women in dynamics that they’re not happy in and puts so much pressure on people’s relationships. It also makes people distant from their friends because they think it’s more important for them to be dating. So, this project is about shining a light on those hidden corners of intimacy that people don’t think about often. Perhaps it could be with people in your life who maybe you only have a platonic relationship with, but it’s a much more meaningful connection and the intimate moments you share with them last much longer than a romantic act you share with someone.”
In seeking a diverse demographic for these conversations to expand the project’s perspective, Danni has spoken to people of all ages, genders and backgrounds. The art is in the act.
“I’ve been exploring the way that my practice can be invisible. I guess it’s like a sense of ego as artists that you want people to recognise your work as something that they can see or touch or understand visually, but a lot of the time what I do is about making space for something to happen within it. If we can invent ways to be intimate with people through creative practice, is there a chance for that to trickle outwards into our wider communities, into our families and into our general relationships?”
In refusing to define or confine her art in terms of its material value, Danni found a natural setting for its current iteration at Lighthouse.
“This is such a central part of creativity in Poole,” she says.
“It’s so involved in expanding horizons for artists like myself to explore a conceptual piece and get to the bottom of a research project that for two years I just haven’t had a space for. I think that what Lighthouse is doing here is actually lifting art into the public sphere because most of the time these conversations are happening in private, especially with work like mine, and it takes a lot of discussion for the impact to be really seen.
“For Lighthouse to give a space like this to a project like mine is something I’m hugely grateful for and I’m really excited to see what could happen.”
https://dannimiles.cargo.site/
@pinkypurp1e
(NC)
photos by Emma Willcox
