We are pressed into lines

We are pressed into lines uses the playground, a familiar symbol of innocence and freedom, to examine how institutions shape belonging, discipline bodies, and limit agency. Through large-scale playground-inspired sculptures, the exhibition traces how systems of control become embedded in the spaces we inhabit and, eventually, in our sense of self.

The title draws from Sara Ahmed’s Queer Phenomenology, which examines how social norms direct the ways we move, live, and think. These “lines” emerge through repeated pressures to conform, shaping our paths long before we recognize them. The playground becomes a site for examining how, from childhood, we learn to conform to the norms that shape how we move, behave, and belong.

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