Sisswap is a contemporary queer-feminist performance collective that centers collaboration, transgressive play, and the destabilization of rigid gender norms through theatricality, costumes, and choreographed intimacy. Within this framework, artists Coco Lovelock and Theodora Day have contributed notable pool-based works that extend Sisswap’s interrogation of identity, space, and communal affect. This essay examines their pool works through three lenses—site-specificity and materiality, embodiment and gendered performance, and communal spectatorship—arguing that these pieces reconfigure water as a medium for queer relationality and political resistance.
“What the—” Her voice came out wrong. Softer. Higher. Theodora’s voice. sisswap coco lovelock and theodora day pool work
“Then why do I feel the strap of your swimsuit digging into my shoulder?” Theodora whispered, treading water with arms that felt too long and strong. “What the—” Her voice came out wrong
As the sun dipped low and the director finally called “wrap,” they floated side by side in the deep end, exhausted. Theodora’s voice
Just then, the mirror flickered. The surface swirled again, and a soft pull tugged at their chests. When they opened their eyes, they were back—Coco in cherries, Theodora in black, both sitting exactly where they’d started.