When put into a specific category, the subject might (will) lose its colours and specificity deals with the idea of subjectivation; when does an individual become a subject and how does it affect our interactions and expectations towards this individual.

Léa Grantham first started doing research on the Asperger Syndrome, looking at how a diagnostic is given and through which observations and tests it is assigned to a person; thinking through notions of what defines normality and how a label can change and affect this so-called idea of a norm. She then began to think about the role of the gaze in relation to the existence of labels; how categories molds our expectations towards a labeled individual and how it shapes and prescribes our perceptions and interactions with them. The artist was also doing research on loneliness, thinking about how a label can possibly create isolation and how it can be falsely perceived as a solution to understanding an individual by placing them into a pre-established category.

The work uses different framing devices, exploring how by creating categories or molds that don’t permeate or consider individuality, these devices can shape and affect the common idea of what defines normality. Through interaction with the piece, it also questions who’s being subjectivised and what it means to be looked at.