Elodie Horsewell: Let Me In // Let Me Out

Let Me In // Let Me Out
Elodie Horsewell

***This poster exhibition will be mounted in multiple Independents Biennial venues from June to September. Please check this page for a list of venues which will be updated shortly.***

Let Me In // Let Me Out is an interventional, text-based adventure game that responds to political, media and social discourses around transgender rights, particularly around our access to single-gender public spaces such as bathrooms. The first iteration of the game was staged in a women’s toilet in the LJMU’s art school building and was adapted to work perfectly for this space.

The work places viewers in the shoes of a trans person who is accessing a public toilet. As viewers move through the narrative of the game, they must make a series of choices about how they navigate the hostile bathroom environment. The game’s installation means that when viewers make decisions which move them through the game’s fictional bathroom, they must also move through the physical bathroom where the game is installed, in order to continue playing.

For many people, toilets in public spaces and within institutions can be a small and insignificant figment of people’s days. However, for trans people, public toilets are spaces of great anxiety, where we often face adversity and discrimination. Let Me In // Let Me Out attempts to provide viewers with a new, more thought-provoking perspective on spaces they might largely take for granted. The game’s interactivity allows viewers to see bathrooms through the eyes of trans people.

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