E. Winslow Funaki

My work is about in-betweenness. It’s an examination of how we identify people and objects, the categories we use to do so, and those that don’t fit squarely into one or the other. It considers the grey areas of identity--race, gender, species, function, living, inanimate. It slips and slides through the ambiguous and indefinite, forever moving, always simultaneously being “both,” “all,” “neither,” and “none.”

It feels familiar but it is also hard to pin down. It references known objects—shopping carts, step ladders—but is never really that thing. It seems to follow a system of logic but that logic isn’t immediately clear to you. There is “logic” but it is not logical. Perhaps it wasn’t made by a human. Or for a human. It seems useful but then it isn’t. As if its maker only half understood what would make an object helpful.

It feels familiar—it isn’t entirely alien. It is never a sealed box that just materialized out of nowhere one day. It was clearly made and its construction is both visible and understandable. Sometimes it seems like the maker just made do with the materials at hand. There are no mysteries and no expertise is required. It is almost boring in its straight-forwardness.

It feels familiar. Almost like a friend. It moves and squeaks sometimes. Not a person or an animal but some- thing related. Something which not only interacts with but shares attributes with a person.

It feels familiar. Just when you think you’ve got it cornered it throws out something else and rolls away.