TRANSITIONAL CULTURE
A performance work exploring identity through physical transformation
THE CONSTRUCTION OF SELF
The work explored what happens
when identity is shaped through
Repetition,
ritual,
and performance.
Daily habits changed.
Thought patterns changed.
The body adapted.
The mind followed.
Over timea,
the distinction between performance
and self
began to dissolve.
CONDITIONING THE IDENTITY
For twelve weeks, daily life became structured
around transformation.
Food, routine, thought patterns, physical conditioning,
and social habits were no longer separate from the work itself.
The performance had already begun long before the audience arrived.
THE SYSTEM
The performance extended beyond the stage.
Schedules, nutrition plans, posing routines, journals, and behavioral structure
THE COST
The work pushed far beyond aesthetic transformation.
Over twelve weeks, Fraser lost 45 pounds through an extreme conditioning program designed to transition between identities and cultural systems.
Under medical supervision, the process became increasingly dangerous.
His body entered severe depletion.
Exhaustion.
Edema.
Kidney distress.
After the final performance, the sudden reintroduction of food and fluids caused his body to retain over 35 pounds of water within days.
He was hospitalized shortly after the performance and treated with emergency diuretics to remove nearly 25 pounds of fluid in under 24 hours.
The transformation was temporary.
The documentation remains.
THE AFTERMATH
The performance ended.
The observation continued.
The body became documentation.
REINTEGRATION
After the performance, the body slowly returned to equilibrium.
Weight returned.
Strength changed.
Identity softened.
The systems that once structured daily life dissolved.
What remained was documentation, memory, and a
transformed understanding of the body as material.
OR more minimal:
REINTEGRATION
The systems dissolved.
The body returned slowly.
What remained was memory, documentation, and change.
THE DOCUMENTATION
What began as physical transformation became permanent documentation.
The project existed across performance, endurance, photography, behavioral systems, and bodily risk.
What remains now are the records:
images,
rituals,
measurements,
exhibitions,
and memory.
The body recovered.
The transformation was temporary.
The documentation was not.
THE TRANSITIONAL CULTURE 2025