Birds of a Feather
We are so excited for partner with Feather Chiaverini for his exhibition, Birds of a Feather, opening at 2nd Story! The exhibit will showcase Feather’s fiber works alongside materials from the Faulkner Morgan Archive that inspired the work. It will be on display at 2nd Story from September 6 to December 5, 2025.
About The Exhibit
Feather Chiaverini is an artist who makes costumes, props, and performances that explore issues related to class, skill, and queer theory. His work is informed by the theatrical trades and material-based vocabularies of his family: Chiaverini's mother was an actress, his father owned a costume shop, and his grandfather performed as a clown. Elevating the everyday object and embracing an amateur or ‘de-skilled’ aesthetic, the artist creates sculptures out of trash and trash out of sculptures. His aesthetic and the quickness with which he makes and manipulate materials speaks to the resilience and resourcefulness of queer communities.
Birds of a Feather features a new body of work that Chiaverini made in response to Lexington’s LGBTQ+ past. In a celebration of queer joy, history, and community, he has recreated costumes and objects inspired by photographs found in the Faulkner Morgan Archive, particularly images showing mermaid tails, showgirl headpieces, and other queer ephemera from pride festivals and old parade floats. Imbued with playfulness and constructed out of materials ranging from ostrich feathers, silicone, athletic mesh, and beads, to braided fabric, neoprene, blankets, and other costuming detritus, Chiaverini’s garments come alive with the energy of theater costume shops and the hurried chaos of last-minute extensions and alterations happening behind the curtain.
Chiaverini envisions this exhibition to be more than a series of objects to be looked at, and invites all viewers to wear his garments. Any body can grow or shrink to fill the role. As an interactive environment, Birds of a Feather not only prompts visitors to think about the transformative labor undertaken by our queer ancestors, but also enables them to experience the same radical joy captured in the archival photographs--the joy that emerges when individuals are allowed to be themselves
About Feather
Feather Chiaverini is a fiber and performance artist from South Florida currently based in Philadelphia, PA. Feather received a BFA from the College of Creative Studies in Detroit, MI and an MFA from Temple University Tyler School of Art and Architecture in Philadelphia, PA. He has shown work nationally at Trout Museum of Art, N’namdi Center for Contemporary Art, Temple Contemporary, ROY G BIV Gallery, and more. He has taught classes at Oxbow School and currently adjuncts at Tyler School of Art, where he is also the Residency Director of the Queer Materials Lab.
