Now part of Bridging Borders, Between the Lines takes the jockstrap—a symbol of masculinity, sport, and competition—and reimagines it through crochet, a technique long coded as domestic, feminine, and queer. These handmade pieces, in the colours of the Argentine and Canadian flags, as well as Boca Juniors and the Toronto Maple Leafs, hang on parallel clotheslines, using humour and camp to disrupt rigid structures of nationalism, sports culture, and gendered labour.
“Nationalism and sports fandom demand allegiance, but queerness disrupts both—not through opposition, but through the quiet insistence of belonging on its own terms.”
Sports and nationalism operate as parallel hegemonies, where identity is shaped through highly ritualized displays of allegiance, competition, and exclusion. Both demand unquestioning loyalty, rewarding those who conform and punishing those who don’t. As Raewyn Connell writes in Masculinities, masculinity is “the unmarked term, the place of symbolic authority”—an invisible dominance embedded in politics and sports alike. The jockstrap, designed to shield and reinforce the male body in moments of performance and physical assertion, becomes something far more vulnerable when translated into soft, intricate textile. This shift queers and destabilizes expectations of strength, resilience, and masculinity itself.
Going head to head…
The placement of the clotheslines introduces an unexpected dynamic: as the garments sway, they brush and rub against each other in a simulated homoerotic exchange. What are traditionally objects of separation—protecting, containing, and reinforcing gendered bodies—suddenly enact intimacy. This recalls Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s writing in Between Men, where she explores how homosocial bonds in patriarchal cultures are structured to exclude queerness while simultaneously relying on deep male intimacy. In this moment, the jockstraps—symbols of competition—become something else: quiet proxies for closeness, disrupting the myth of compulsory heterosexuality within hypermasculine spaces.
Between the Lines, Installation view at Coordenadas Residencia, Buenos Aires, Argentina 2025.
This work speaks to the complexity of identity—how different aspects of who we are can serve as a bridge, even when other parts are in conflict. As José Esteban Muñoz explains in Disidentifications, queerness often functions as “a third mode of dealing with dominant ideology… one that neither opts to assimilate within such a structure nor strictly opposes it.” Nationalism, sports fandom, and gender norms tend to define borders—both literal and symbolic—while shared histories, queerness, and cultural traditions create connections. This tension plays out in the work, where garments that might otherwise signify division engage instead in a quiet, unexpected dance of friction and intimacy.
At the same time, the parallel clotheslines evoke the unpaid and invisible labor of women and caregivers—the infrastructure that keeps societies intact while remaining undervalued. While men have shaped history through politics, sports, and conflict, it has been women who have done the quiet, daily work of holding communities together through caregiving, domestic labor, and emotional support. As bell hooks writes in Feminism is for Everybody, feminism demands “liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression”—yet it is still women who bear the burden of sustaining both the home and the social fabric. In contrast to the spectacle of war, sport, and nation-building, this unseen work ensures that communities survive, even as institutions and power structures create division. The image of the jockstraps drying on a line, limp and exposed, speaks to the impermanence of power and the fragility of the very masculinities they are designed to uphold.
Bridging Borders is a collaboration between Red Head Gallery and Coordenadas Residencia, fostering dialogue across cultures through art. The last chance to catch this exhibition in Buenos Aires is February 20, 2025.