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you | who/what
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What initially formally germinated as a
mid-COIVD exhibition foray into intimacy in a rehabilitating society, barriers to intimacy became a six-year long investigation into understanding desire from a principle question: what gets in the way?  


Barriers to intimacy are all the socio-economic constructs, gender roles, power dynamics, and tools and technologies that operate under larger systems of oppression and how they interfere with regulating our meaningful social relationships built on meeting each others needs.They are the invisible markers behind the scenes that are creating the gestalt of intimacy under systems designed for extraction and exploitation.


Desire function economically. Limerence as a narrative vehicle describes not only the erotic or romantic connotations themselves, but also acts as a poorly disguised substitution for desiring [cultural] capital and trying to reconcile with all of its invisible implications.





Marcus Masaki Rodriguez (Los Angeles) is a writer and artist who received his BFA as a Visionary Practice Scholar from California College of the Arts in Painting & Drawing with a minor in Critical Ethnic Studies. He is a two-time Getty Marrow Undergraduate Intern working in curation, higher education, and collections management. His work was included in the SUR: Biennial in 2023. In 2025, he was a resident at the Yale Norfolk School of Art, where he was recognized with a director’s award for his short erotic film series.