Carolyn Craig: Becoming Penguin

In Becoming Penguin (Act II), Carolyn Craig uses the figure of the penguin to examine how judgement is carried through the body. The penguin is not simply a character or disguise, but a constructed identity through which the artist tests the pressures of adaptation, belonging and exclusion. As Craig reflects, “I want to huddle against the cruelty of the world. I want to become penguin in all its absurdist overtones.”

The work begins in performance, before the action is documented, stilled and subjected to classification. Through this process, the playful absurdity of the penguin becomes increasingly uneasy. It is a body made visible, sorted and read through a system that appears neutral but has already set the terms.

Informed by Michelle Alexander’s writing on the contemporary caste system, Craig uses humour and transformation to unsettle ideas of innocence and blame, asking how identities of criminality or deviance are produced rather than simply found.

Image caption: Carolyn Craig, Act 5: geometry of sight, 2026, expired photo etching from a performance by the artist. Courtesy the artist.