The first iteration of the project, titled It’s Easy to Get Lost Here took place at Spokane Falls Community College in January 2024. These interactive works explored the transformative nature of blanket forts, treehouses, and other makeshift childhood structures. The exhibit invited viewers into a series of impermanent constructions that investigated the formation of queer identity in adolescence.

Within the clubhouse, viewers were invited to play a choose-your-own-adventure video game featuring imagery and narrative from a previous reconstruction of the artist’s childhood home.

As a queer, nonbinary adult, reflecting on the ways in which I claimed space for myself as a child has been beneficial in creating spaces wherein collective resilience can flourish. A blanket fort sprawling across the living room floor is a safe haven in which a greater level of perceived autonomy and individuality may be asserted. The resilience of the fort speaks to that same resilience of queer identity, flourishing even in unsupportive environments. Returning to my hometown to display this work, nostalgia and reconciliation played an especially important role in the work.