In Conversation with Lucca Süss

KG: You frequently incorporate found materials into your work. How does this process of appropriation and transformation tie into your broader exploration of identity, particularly within queer and trans narratives?

LS: The process of appropriation and transformation in my work is both an act of empowerment and a means of resistance. By reclaiming objects that were never intended for me (Objects tied to structures, aesthetics, or functions that exist outside of my lived experience as a trans person) I disrupt their original contexts and reposition them within a queer narrative of possibility. This act of recontextualisation mirrors the ways in which queer and trans identities navigate, resist, and reshape imposed societal structures. Within the sculptural framework, these materials take on the qualities of a body in flux, constantly shifting, mutating, and refusing to settle into a fixed form. Their deconstruction and reassembly parallel the experience of transition, where transformation is not a linear process but an ongoing negotiation of selfhood. Through this, the work challenges rigid definitions of materiality and embodiment alike. This metamorphosis recalls something akin to a "Gregor Samsa-like" transformation, an irreversible shift that not only alters the object itself but also the way it is perceived and understood. By breaking apart and reconstructing these materials, I challenge normative categories and propose instead a space where material, body, and meaning exist in a state of continuous becoming. In this way, my sculptural practice does not just reflect queer and trans narratives, it actively enacts them.

KG: In what ways do you think your sculptures provide a space for alternative perspectives or disrupt traditional norms, especially in relation to gender and societal expectations?

LS: In my artistic practice, I engage with the systemic marginalisation of queer individuals, using the materialisation of transformation as both an aesthetic and conceptual tool. My sculptures are not merely visual responses to these issues—they also serve as catalysts for thought, offering space for alternative perspectives. I do not depict transition as a linear journey with a definitive endpoint, but rather as an open, ongoing process that reflects the fluidity of bodies and identities. My work stages transformation itself, a continuous movement that resists fixed definitions and embraces change as its core principle. A central element of my practice is translating these transitions into sculptural form. I work with materials that, in everyday use, have clear and defined functions. However, through artistic intervention, I strip them of their original utility and recontextualise them. In their interaction with other materials and through sculptural manipulation, they undergo a radical transformation, a metamorphosis that mirrors the transformative potential of bodies and identities. In this sense, these objects do not merely symbolise transition; they actively embody it. I find the notion of a "goal" in the context of transition problematic, as it suggests a linear trajectory with a fixed destination—an idea that often fails to reflect the lived experiences of trans individuals. Instead, my work embraces transition as an ongoing process of self-determination, reinvention, and the expansion of societal categories. My sculptures disrupt traditional norms by defying easy categorization and creating spaces for new modes of perception and thought. Each material I use carries its own history and cultural significance, often shaped by normative ideas about gender, function, or social role. By deconstructing and recombining these materials, I carve out an in-between space, one where fragmentation, unfamiliarity, and fluidity become visible. In this way, the sculpture itself becomes a performative element, exploring the possibilities of transformation and challenging fixed notions of body and identity. Ultimately, my work is not just an artistic exploration of queer and trans identity; it is an invitation to question traditional categories and engage with new perspectives. It encourages an open-ended, ongoing dialogue, one that does not seek a final answer but instead finds meaning in the continuous movement of transformation. 

KG: The Hulk's Garden combines performance and installation to explore themes of hypermasculinity and transformation. How did you and Liam Rooney collaborate to create a work that challenges these societal ideals, and how does the performance aspect enhance the installation?

LS: The sculptures in The Hulk’s Garden are composed of fragmented fitness equipment, symbols of a hypermasculine, performance-driven body aesthetic. However, through modification and appropriation, these objects are stripped of their original function. They resemble workout machines, yet their operation remains ambiguous: How does one train with them? What kind of movements do they demand? Their seemingly rigid design is disrupted, structures that suggest stability instead reveal warped lines and broken symmetries. They appear as though they have evolved over time, as if they have organically grown and mutated. These sculptures act as resistant counterparts, as choreographic partners that challenge, support, or sabotage the body. Their monstrous forms evoke alchemical circles, geometries of transformation, promising a metamorphosis into something else: a machine, a myth, a distorted reflection of an ideal. Yet, they are not merely a backdrop; they actively shape the performance, functioning as living documents of the bodies that have formed them and the bodies they, in turn, shape. Constantly in motion, always in dialogue with their surroundings, they become queer organisms that renegotiate the relationship between body, object, and space. Interacting with these sculptural elements generates a performance oscillating between strength, fragility, and humor. The sculptures dictate the movements, dynamics, and intensity of the choreography. The body adapts, resists, or merges with the structures, simultaneously drawn to and repelled by them. Together, they map out the space, alluding to a gym, but one where mechanisms are dysfunctional, and the rules are distorted. In our collaboration with Liam Rooney, we integrate this sculptural aesthetic with a performative investigation into the rituals of the Manosphere, from fitness routines and Looksmaxing to viral internet trends. Movements are analysed both symbolically and physically, probing the limits of the body: Where does the animalistic or non-human emerge in these movements? Where do they collide with physical and ideological barriers? What absurd, unattainable expectations are placed on the “perfect man”? And what, in turn, renders the Giga-Chad utterly ridiculous? By merging sculpture and performance, we not only challenge the construction of hypermasculine ideals but also expose their artificiality; through exaggeration, distortion, and deliberate caricature. While the sculptures serve as the material embodiment of these ideals, the performance allows for an immediate, visceral engagement with how they shape the body itself. It makes tangible how these norms not only impose physical constraints but also ideological ones, dictating that the body must be shaped, controlled, and optimised until it inevitably collapses under its own absurdity.

KG: The Manosphere and the archetype of the "Alpha Male" seem central to the piece. How do you see The Hulk’s Garden confronting or deconstructing these ideologies, and what message do you hope viewers take away from this interaction?

LS: The Hulk’s Garden engages with the contradictions and mechanisms of the Manosphere by adopting its aesthetics and rhetoric, only to push them into the realm of the absurd. This tension between reproduction and deconstruction allows the piece to expose the ways in which these ideologies are constructed and the consequences they generate. At the heart of the performance is the figure of the bodybuilder, who at first glance seems to embody many of the ideals propagated within the Manosphere, a hypermasculine, muscular body defined by control, strength, and discipline. However, a closer look reveals a deeper contradiction: while bodybuilders often chase after fictionalised ideals, they actually embody a very different set of values, ones that extend far beyond traditional masculinity. Their bodies are not "natural"; they are deliberately constructed, artificially optimised, and even hyper-aestheticized, an aspect that overlaps with queer camp. Within the performance, this body becomes a sculptural battlefield of struggle and transformation. It stretches, wrestles, contorts, and submits to itself, encountering the voice of the Hulk along the way. What emerges is a play between seriousness and irony, an exaggeration of masculine archetypes that ultimately exposes their artificiality until the body itself mutates into a camp figure. Through this process, the piece does not merely question how masculinity is constructed but actively deconstructs the rigid roles championed within the Manosphere. The audience is invited into a surreal world where these supposed ideals begin to crack, giving way to new questions about power, self-presentation, and gender roles. By working with exaggeration, humor, and intentional distortion, The Hulk’s Garden not only reveals the absurdity of these ideologies but also creates space for alternative, more fluid understandings of identity and corporeality. 

KG: You’ve mentioned that the materials in your work carry narratives from different times and places. How do you balance the original cultural “voices” of these materials with the new meanings they take on once recontextualized in your sculptures?

LS: The way I engage with the cultural voices of materials is deeply tied to the original objects themselves. Not every object holds the same weight for me. There are certain materials I avoid because I do not feel positioned to critique or engage with the histories they carry. This is a personal decision, as the associations objects evoke are not universal but shaped by individual experience. For example, as a queer person who grew up in a Western, heteronormative environment, my relationship to certain domestic relics like chrome steel handles, shower pipes, and bike racks differs significantly from someone who benefits from the patriarchal structures that define these spaces. To me, these materials embody an enforced order, a rigid and sanitized form of domesticity that subtly reinforces heteronormative values. Similarly, sportswear and performance-driven gear carry the aesthetics and ethos of masculinity, discipline, and physical control. Depending on one’s position, these qualities can feel aspirational, oppressive, or alienating. Because of this, I do not think of my process in terms of balancing an object’s existing narrative with a new one. My goal is not to preserve or negotiate meaning but to completely rewrite and reown it. The objects I work with are subjected to acts of transformation; this process disrupts their familiar context, stripping them of their original connotations and placing them within a new and fluid framework. In this way, the sculptures become sites of negotiation. This is not a negotiation between old and new meanings, but between what was assumed to be fixed and what is now radically unstable. The objects do not simply shift context. They become unfamiliar and ultimately uncontained by the expectations once projected onto them.

KG: Fashion plays a significant role in your practice, especially in the subversion of traditional gender norms. How do you view the connection between fashion, vulnerability, and spectacle in the context of your sculptural works?

LS: For queer people, dressing up is more than self-expression, it is a negotiation of visibility, a way of layering one form of vulnerable exposure with another form of spectacle. Clothing becomes loud, joyful, chaotic and a wild remaking of the surface that both conceals and transforms the body, situating it within a different universe, a utopian space of play and pleasure. My sculptures follow the same logic; their surfaces, composed largely of found materials, carry the weight of different histories, referencing both Western domesticated life and queer contemporary pop culture and fashion. Fashion is deeply embedded in queer experience, not just as a means of protection but often as the very thing that makes identity possible. Clothes become armour, makeup turns into a helmet, and high heels take on the resilience of steel-toe boots. Yet, this "everyday armour" is not about concealment, it is about feeling alive, about asserting presence in a world that often seeks to erase or diminish. The paradox is that while fashion offers empowerment, it can also amplify risk, turning the wearer into a target in certain contexts. My sculptural works mirror this tension between self-construction and exposure, between resilience and vulnerability, ultimately transforming the materials themselves into bodies that, like us, exist in a state of both defiance and precariousness. 

KG: The idea of the "mutating body" is central to your art. How do you envision the materiality of your sculptures interacting with this concept, especially when reflecting the fluidity of gender and identity?

LS: As these diverse materials come together, the sculpture itself exists in a state of perpetual transition. In their materiality, they carry the narratives of different times and spaces, from the familiar domesticity of the nuclear family home to the dynamic references of queer contemporary pop culture. In this way, the materiality of the sculpture serves as a living document of transient moments. The mutating body is not just a metaphor within my work; it is embedded in the very way the materials behave. Found objects are dismantled, reshaped, and fused together, losing their original context and taking on new, unexpected functions. Their instability echoes the experience of a body that refuses fixed categorisation, that moves between states rather than settling into one. Gender, like the materiality of my sculptures, is not a static entity, it is a process, a negotiation, an ongoing act of becoming. The sculptures, in their unfinished, ever-changing forms, resist the idea of a single, completed identity. At the core of this transformation is the destabilisation of rigid structures—whether in materials, bodies, or cultural narratives. Transness, as a lived experience and as a conceptual force, disrupts the very foundations upon which traditional identity politics are built. The fear and resistance this provokes are telling: as theorist Susan Stryker describes, trans people are often framed through the lens of "unnatural monstrosity," a projection of cultural anxieties about gender fluidity. My sculptures lean into this monstrosity—not as something to be feared, but as something to be reclaimed. In their hybrid, fragmented, and constantly shifting forms, they expose the deep-seated panic around bodies that refuse coherence, that refuses to be easily named. This cultural anxiety is mirrored in the way certain queer and feminist movements have historically positioned transness as a threat, rather than as an expansion of possibilities. Just as trans bodies have been misrepresented as aberrations, my sculptures embrace a state of in-betweenness, a space where mutation is not failure but potential. They challenge not only the fixity of gender but also the broader structures that attempt to define what is natural, stable, or legible. In this way, the sculptures serve as sites of resistance. They do not simply represent transformation; they enact it. They demand engagement, existing in an in-between state that is neither fully recognisable nor entirely alien. Their surfaces are layered with traces of past lives, much like queer and trans bodies carry histories, histories of self-invention, of adaptation, of survival. They mutate not just in form but in meaning; they shift depending on who looks at them, how they are contextualised, and where they are placed. Ultimately, I see my sculptures as physical manifestations of queerness itself—restless, nonconforming, and always in flux. They challenge traditional notions of wholeness, stability, and function, embracing the beauty of impermanence and transformation. In doing so, they offer an alternative way of thinking