Little Freaks Building a Freak Home: My Freak Future

By Benny VanLandschoot

Benny VanLandschoot's Website and Instagram

Based in Milton, ON, Canada

Little Freaks Building a Freak Home: My Freak Future, Sculpture, Various Materials, 4'x2'

This piece explores my hopes and fears about my future. It takes an optimistic approach to what my life could look like. It’s a very idyllic and immature vision of my future, with some details left undecided. I’ve had a difficult time envisioning my future since it does not align well with the whole marriage-nuclear-family-white-picket-fence dream. My vision of my future has been pieced together from bits and pieces gleaned from reading and research on niche communities. I exist unconventionally and plan to live unconventionally; I am a little freak looking for my freak home. This home is something it seems I’ll need to build myself. So, without a concrete, pre-existing blueprint to look to, this sculpture functions as that blueprint. 

This sculpture has two distinct styles. The landscape and base of the house are cleanly cut from ¼” birch plywood; this material and style of design reference architectural models. Each aspect of the base is crafted to the same scale and finished very cleanly. All of the extra customizations, disruptions to the norm, or freakifications, are built on top of that with found materials: scraps of fabric, flocking, metal wiring, collected plastic, collected metal hardware, and collected and crafted doll furniture. The disruptions are made to various scales to bring in the pieced-together concept, and to reference the look of a child’s dollhouse. The dollhouse furniture works to convey the immature aspect of this vision; I am still young, optimistic, and unsure of the specifics. The contrast in styles also represents the contrast between this freak future and the expected traditional idea. This freak future is a very freaky queer future filled with close community and peace found in the simple tasks of living.

The model depicts a property with a three-story house, a back deck, a large hoop house, and a moving van. The back of the house and deck face the yard, but the front is open to view the interior layout. The top of the hoop house is rolled back, so viewers can see the raised garden beds, one-gallon pots, plug trays, and gardening supplies inside. A collection of little freaks are positioned around the home. These freaks are made out of wire, yarn wrapping, fabric scraps, metal hardware, small animal skulls, and collected bug parts. These freaks are based on the people I hope to meet and keep in my future. The property is decorated with wooden dowels to represent trees and wild growth, but designed and planted gardens are made out of dried and pressed flowers. This all rests on layered birch plywood cut to 4’x2’. 

I want viewers to almost enter the space by leaning in to view the small details. Details like the hoop house and hidden rooms are revealed to the viewers in a way that invites them in on a secret. I’m hoping to upset and confuse viewers at first with the use of bones, bug parts and unconventional materials. People often find me and my community upsetting and disturbing to witness, so I’m hoping for a similar reaction to the materials. I wonder what connections they will draw between my freaks, what characteristics they will assign them, and who they will imagine them to be.