Q&A with Mad Green

Briefly describe your thesis project.
My thesis project has been created alongside an ongoing social practice of hosting Queer Fight Club. During the past six months I have been training and building community with about 20 other Queer people in which we learn how to defend ourselves through kickboxing. While this community is centered around the physicality of learning the sport, we also are learning to connect with ourselves and each other as we create a safe space for Queer rage.  

When experiencing my work, I hope Queer people are motivated to lean into their rage. I want us to feel our fury. I want straight people to think about why Queers are learning how to fight, and how they feel by being excluded.  

Did you always know this would be your final project? When or how did you figure it out?    I knew I would be creating work about kickboxing, as I’ve been investigating my own relationship with it, but I had no idea I would be transitioning into social practice until I made a short film. While the film is unrelated to Queer Fight Club, it inspired me to get out of my lonely studio and create artwork with community involvement.  

What has been surprising as you’ve worked on this project?  What surprised me the most was how much this process has affected my relationship with my own history, trauma, and disability. I was seeking a way to share my knowledge of the sport but while doing this I realized I was rewriting my body’s connection to the physical process of being violent. 

How have you evolved as an artist over the years?   I came to grad school as an oil painter who wanted to try new things. I stopped painting in September of my first year and started exploring, which led to falling in love with all sorts of processes, including film, photo, performance, and now social practice. I feel as though my time at the Sam Fox School has allowed me to stop labeling myself by the medium I choose and inspired me to fall into the corners of my fascination that were limited by painting.  

Why did you choose to go to graduate school at WashU?   While WashU has its own accolades, I primarily came here because I wanted to come back home. I wanted to be an artist in the place that I grew up, I wanted to make art about my difficult relationship with St. Louis, and honestly, I wanted to sit with my ugly memories and see what I could get out of them.