Weed Killer, 2017

The intersection of gender, illness, and contamination is the focal point of the video installation Weed Killer (2017) by Patrick Staff (b. 1987, Bognor Regis, UK; lives in LA and London). Staff was inspired by artist-writer Catherine Lord’s memoir The Summer of Her Baldness (2004)—a moving and often irreverent account of the author’s experience of cancer. At the heart of Staff’s work is a monologue, adapted from Lord’s book, which reflects upon the chemically induced devastation of chemotherapy. This text is enacted with unrelenting intensity by actress Debra Soshoux, who recites Lord’s description of taking chemotherapy drugs as akin to “mainlining weed killer.” In other words, deeply toxic substances must be ingested, paradoxically, in order to stay alive. Throughout Weed Killer, Staff intertwines notions of affliction and contamination with the demand for survival on one’s own terms.

Each of the performers in Weed Killer identifies as transgender. By probing both cancer and trans experiences, Staff initiates a dialogue about how biomedical technologies have fundamentally transformed the social constitution of our bodies. The work builds on that of earlier artists—such as Jo Spence and General Idea, who in the 1980s tackled cancer and the AIDS crisis, respectively—which foregrounded how the treatment of illness and wellness are deeply political and social issues. Staff’s focus, however, is not on a single condition, but on the overlapping ways in which our bodies are transformed and regulated pharmacologically, from the use of chemotherapy and antidepressant drugs to hormone therapies. Simultaneously, Weed Killer draws attention to complex experiences of personal suffering in order to highlight the fine line between alternately poisonous and curative substances.