For an emerging artist slot in 2018, we selected recent graduate, Dylan Fox. Rituals of Tourism was based on Fox’s early childhood memories of visiting the seaside; exploring the beach, racing to get candyfloss, saving room for fish and chips, and finding a suitable postcard to send home.

As an adult, these activities  became rituals. They were important steps in ensuring a trip to the seaside lived up to expectations. Dylan turned these rituals into a series of new works, each addressing some of the artist’s more recent experiences of gender transition, playing with the balance between these formative memories and the much harsher reality of living as a transgender adult.

Many of these works also highlighted how these realities affect the wider transgender community, using the exhibition as a platform to voice these problems.

Rituals of Tourism explored different methods of collaboration, such as a series of artist led walks where members of the public could steer the direction taken and the topic of conversation. This opened up questions of authorship, collaboration and community.

Dylan’s practice explores the physical, medical, emotional and social aspects of gender transition; specifically the frustration felt with inefficient transgender healthcare pathways. His work is hinged on how social constructs affect people, aiming to question and shift these by generating work through social interaction, working with other artists and the public.

A key part of this exhibition for audiences was the process of finding ephemeral works around the town, such as beermats, postcard stands, free candyfloss, deckchairs, and windbreaks—the gallery acting as a Tourist Information Centre and exploration point for each work and event.

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