“A WOMAN CALLING HERSELF JEANNE THE PUCELLE (THE MAID), LEAVING OFF THE DRESS AND CLOTHING OF THE FEMININE SEX, A THING CONTRARY TO DIVINE LAW AND ABOMINABLE BEFORE GOD, AND FORBIDDEN BY ALL LAWS, WORE CLOTHING AND ARMOR SUCH AS IS WORN BY MEN.”

Joseph Liatela’s multidisciplinary practice moves between sculpture, dance, and film, exploring collective movement, embodiment, and shared ritual and social space. Themes of grief, loss, healing, and salvation are expressed through religious iconography, natural materials, scent, and sound. Here, Liatela pays tribute to Joan of Arc, one of Catholicism’s most revered saints, sentenced to death by the same church in 1430. The work’s title is taken from the extensive records of Joan’s trial and refers to her insistence on wearing male-gendered clothing as God’s will, expressed to her through voices and visions. Through singeing the trunk of a redwood tree—a wood resistant to burning and a symbol of strength, resilience, and healing—Liatela acknowledges Joan’s eternal life as a patron saint not only of France but of queer and trans people everywhere who insist on the dignity and sacredness of their gender expression. A ring of salt encircles the sculpture in a gesture of safety and protection. Within it are placed a number of glass cups filled with slowly evaporating ocean water, corresponding to the number of publicly known trans people murdered, to date, in the year of the work's exhibition.