Content warning: This article contains a photo of the art piece "Ouroboros," which includes sculptural representations of human genitals.

This article is part of Concentrate's Voices of Youth series, which features content created by Washtenaw County youth in partnership with Concentrate staff mentors. In this installment, student writer Ella Yip chats with artist Machine Dazzle about the process and themes behind his "Ouroboros" exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art.

For six months earlier this year, a colorful beast known as "Ouroboros" lived suspended unapologetically in time, a collaboration of structure and trash, against the backdrop of the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA).

"It’s something you could really go into and lose yourself in," says Machine Dazzle, a New York City-based artist, former resident artist at the University of Michigan (U-M), and creator of "Ouroboros." "There’s what I hope people got out of it, and then there’s what people actually got out of it." 

Neil KagererMachine Dazzle at work on "Ouroboros."
Dazzle's "Ouroboros" exhibit truly melded itself into the UMMA community. The exhibit featured a plethora of found objects and trash, expertly shaped into wearable pieces, living stoically under a representation of the mythical ouroboros, a snake that eats its tail, as trash flows freely from its skeleton. Dazzle collected trash used in the exhibit from the Huron River.

"I think that people were a little surprised about it ... just sitting there, and actually, strangely, as disturbing as it could actually be, that [it] is literally made out of garbage," Dazzle says.

Neil KagererMachine Dazzle's "Ouroboros."
The birth of "Ouroboros" was rooted in feeling. Dazzle found himself unsure of what emotions the project would induce.

"I wasn’t entirely sure how it was going to end. It was very experimental. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find in the garbage or in the room. I didn’t really know what was going to happen," Dazzle says. "It's almost like the garbage is telling me what it wants to be in its next life."   

In its finished form, "Ouroboros" represented not only the sheer amount of waste found locally, but the notion of waste as a form of reproduction, a uniquely human creation, left meaningless on the earth that it came from. Exploring the piece leaves a lot to unpack.

"It's human garbage. I gave it human genitals. So that's really it, and we are doing it. Humans are doing it. The garbage is not human, but it is, but it isn't, but it is, but it isn't," Dazzle says. "You know, it's like a back and forth, forever. It comes from us. It is us. We are the garbage. We create it. We consume it. It's us, and now other species are consuming it. The Earth is consuming it. It's here forever now." 

"Ouroboros" also explored what it means to be human. 

"It's death and rebirth, death and rebirth, over and over and over again forever," Dazzle says. "So I just gave it humor, and I made it a little sexy, maybe, and ... maybe it makes it a little disturbing or whatever, but that's how I see it."

Dazzle noted varying reactions in those who observed "Ouroboros."

"I know that some people thought it was amusing. Some people were comforted. Some people just tried to spend a lot of time with it," Dazzle says.

With the myriad layers of symbolism to absorb in "Ouroboros," it may have been overlooked that Dazzle also embedded queer identity into the piece.

"[The] sculpture is really just a reflection of Ann Arbor through my queer lens," Dazzle says. "I don't know if people got that far."  

"Ouroboros" was made even more important with the loss of queer gathering spaces in Ann Arbor.

"It's been hard for the queer community, and not just in Ann Arbor but across the country, to lose spaces like the Aut Bar, gay bookstores, [and] LGBT community centers, which are really changing as community gathering spaces," says Jim Leija, director of public experience and learning at UMMA.

Empty space, however, provided the perfect environment for "Ouroboros" to thrive. The completed structure was born in time for the third annual Queer Night at UMMA.

Doug CoombeQueer Night participants take in "Ouroboros."
"It was so amazing. It was just a really beautiful gathering," Leija says.

The night featured a runway as Dazzle's wearable sculptures were displayed in a fashion show in the museum's first-floor gallery space.

"We did the runway activation three times over the course of the evening," Leija says. "You could look down from the second floor, and the lighting was really beautiful. And to see the costumes activated and to be in the space in real time was just really pretty amazing."

AJ SaulsberryPerformers wear costumes created by Machine Dazzle in a runway-style show at UMMA.
Though "Ouroboros" has receded from Ann Arbor’s art scene, the beast now slumbers in Dazzle's studio, awaiting another day to once again halt time. 

"Something that I think of often when making something is the space that it occupies," Dazzle says. "It's taking up a different kind of space now. It is garbage that was discarded, that I picked out of the river, and made into art that was occupying [UMMA], and now it's occupying my space." 

Ella Yip is a junior at Huron High School in Ann Arbor.

Photos courtesy of UMMA.

To learn more about Concentrate's Voices of Youth project and read other installments in the series, click here.