This series of work creates grab bars, a commonly visible access device, to speculate on access beyond mere survival and into a disabled sociality. These works are sized to the dimensions of the artist’s body and provide a physical dance score for supported movements. With hardware of soft silicon and a surface rubbed in graphite, they daydream of devices that invite sensual attention to the materials and indexes of access.

Visual Description: Two dark gray tubular shapes intertwine in elegant curves, rising from the floor and bending up, forwards, or down. The tubes have round rubber marbleized sky blue hardware at both ends, where they meet the wall or the ground.

Visual Description: A long, narrow u-shaped black tube hangs from the ceiling. Attached to the tube is a large blue rubber ring that is textured with equidistant bumps. The blue ring is suspended from the smooth, u shape of the graphite rubbed tube.

This series of work creates grab bars, a commonly visible access device, to speculate on access beyond mere survival and into a disabled sociality. These works are sized to the dimensions of the artist’s body and provide a physical dance score for supported movements. With hardware of soft silicon and a surface rubbed in graphite, they daydream of devices that invite sensual attention to the materials and indexes of access. 

Visual Description: This graphite rubbed sculpture is composed of 3 weaving tubes mounted on a white wall. The tubes are bent in various directions with a marbleized sky blue rubber hardware at each point they meet the wall. There are a total of 6 points of contact fixed by this sky rubber hardware.

Visual Description: A U shaped graphite colored tube is in the center of the image with symmetric looping shadows falling from it onto the white wall. The grab bar is connected to the wall with sky blue rubber hardware.

The Body of a Trap is part of a series of sculptural works collapsing the distinction between "the trap" and "that which is trapped." The work casted structures and strategies of animal traps with prosthetic rubber, bringing a soft body into these traps. This collapse is a rumination on the artist's experience of disabling chronic illness, in which the body is experienced as both the trap and that which is trapped. The rubber net is hung by industrial strength chain and hardware hearkening to BDSM archival imagery. This series of traps resonates with a particular kink practice named predicament bondage in which "a person is restrained and forced to experience opposing sensory forces." This choice between equally uncomfortable sensation mirrors many of the calculations made inside of ill and disabled peoples days. For example, choosing between caning up 3 steps to a storefront to damage ones knees, feet and ankles, or expending the greater energy to walk the equivalent 15 feet of ramp to black out at door. There are countless impossible but unavoidable decisions under ableism for disabled bodies.

Visual Description A large translucent rubber casted net is suspended from the ceiling by four vertical metal chains, one at each corner. Each chain drops directly down from ceiling hooks and ends with a small metal sphere, giving the installation a sense of tension and gravity. The open lattice structure of the net sags gently between the chains, forming a rounded shape that floats and droops above the floor beneath it. There are several wide tears in the net that fray under its own weight. The net hangs over a white gallery bench that is outfitted with a cushion made of surgical draping and mesh casted with silicon grips. In the background there is a touch object shelf hung at 31" with a sample of the net for easy tactile access. 

Visual description: A teal-toned poster features a distorted net being tugged by a dark metal chain hanging down diagonally to the left side. Bold black text at the top reads “SICK PLAY,” and the name “ALX VELOZO” appears on the right inside a break in the net. Along the bottom, event details list an opening reception on December 12, 2025, from 7–10 PM at Sleepwalker Collective at 324 East 23rd St, Baltimore.

One of the central aims of the exhibition Sick Play is to reimagine the queer hanky color code system using  hospital color coding. The motif of the experience these color meaning-making systems re-lensing ones experience of sensation power and desire is extended in the color transparency print outs. Audience members are invited to carry and read the excerpted sick on sick BDSM fantasy excerpts as the colored transparencies they are printed on passively change the experience of color in the exhibition. That is the way the sick body as a lens for experience works- it passively and sometimes actively alters the experience of your body coming into contact with the world along with hedgemonic systems of understanding the world. 

Visual Description: This is a view of the back corner of Sick Play installation. It includes the colored transparency print outs, a QR code to the screenreadable document of the print outs, a marked window sill resting space- marked with a surgery drape blue cushion casted in silicone grippies, along with a white winding speculative grab bar outfitted with small metal piercings.  

Visual Description: The front room of the exhibition Sick Play 2025. This view includes two large sculptures in the center and upper right corner, two collages on the wall, and 3 blue marked resting spaces.  

Visual Description: A chain hangs straight down from the ceiling to pool onto a square piece of mottled olive carpeting clipped by two clip boards. Soft silicone locks casted in light complexion colors- peach beige and tan- interlock with the chain and stretch and distort between pooled links. 3 soft silicone locks stretch and warp from the vertical chain at varied heights from the floor. 

Visual Description: A chain hangs straight down from the ceiling to pool onto a square piece of mottled olive carpeting clipped by two clip boards. Soft silicone locks casted in light complexion colors- peach beige and tan- interlock with the chain and stretch and distort between pooled links. 3 soft silicone locks stretch and warp from the vertical chain at varied heights from the floor. 

Visual Description: Flesh toned silicon casted locks stretch between yellowing latex tubing. This latex tubing is traditionally used in hospital settings to affix catheters, IVs, and torniquettes. 

Visual Description: A tall, improvisational sculpture stands leaned against the corner where two white walls meet, built from latex tubing in a yellowing brown and off-white tone. Tubing stretches between metal anchors on both walls, creating a zigzagging form that rises from the floor to nearly the ceiling. Several small stretched pale peach pink and muddy mauve rubber locks connect the tubes at angles. The end of each tube has been folded back on itself and wrapped with thin silver metal wire. At the base, a single vertical rubber tube extends out towards us, and is tied off on a bright red rubber dumbbell, which acts as a counterweight. The rods at midpoint angle outward–one crossing in front of the other–before reaching back toward metal mounting points fixed in the drywall. Shadows cast by the taut bands create secondary lines across the wall. 

Visual description: Mounted on a white wall, a square piece of gray translucent plexiglass is drilled slightly askew, trapping several overlapping materials that spill beyond its edges: a paragraph of printed text on clear acetate, a navy blue bandana that drapes and hangs over the plexi, and a piece of dark blue mesh with a visible rubber anti-slip pattern.

In this flagging color study a blue surgical bouffant cap the artist wore in surgery is suctioned against neon yellow mesh hand casted with silicon grips. The semi transparent blue and yellow are pressed together using wide head silver screws and multiple pieces of thin clear acrylic sheets. The grips hearken to hospital socks- a marker of being a medical patient and the hardware pins this marker and medical archive in place. 

Visual Description: Two pieces of clear plexiglass smattered with screws press a translucent blue surgical mesh atop neon yellow mesh fabric. The mesh fabric’s raised rubber anti-slip pattern faintly shows under the creased blue mesh. Towards the lower center a screw with a rubber washer pulls and twists the fabrics into folds. Beside it is a ghost of printed text.

 Visual Description: On a white wall, a layered arrangement combines a folded gray bandana, a sheet of soft pink fabric, and a piece of yellow plexiglass that is drilled to the wall and traps everything into place. Behind and beneath the plexi, a translucent pink mesh with raised anti-slip patterns and a yellow hospital-style anti-slip sock protrude, creating an uneven, draped composition. A paragraph of printed text on clear acetate extends out from behind the plexiglass, partially visible through the overlapping materials.

Visual Description: On a white wall, two small rectangular plexiglass panels (one purple in the upper left and one neon yellow in the lower right) are drilled slightly askew, pinning a pale mint mesh fabric with raised rubber anti-slip texture. A green hospital-style anti-slip sock is folded over the yellow plexi, hanging downward. Beneath the mesh, a paragraph of printed text on clear acetate is partially visible and slightly overlapped by the layered materials.

Visual Description: A sheet of bright orange printer paper with black text is held slightly askew on a white wall beneath a tilted translucent blue plexiglass panel.

Video Description: A white non-binary trans cane-user dances on a blue gym mat on a light wooden floor. They’re black cane lays parallel to one side of the mat and the other side presses against a mirrored wall. The disabled dancer is costumed in a long sleeve tight black shirt adorned with nearly 500 bubble levels. The video documents them dancing horizontally across the mat to headphoned music that is not audible to the audience. Throughout the 15 minutes the camera shows an overall view of the mat dance space while repeatedly cutting in for close-ups of the levels’ bubbles shifting with the performers movement.

Visual Description: In this close up video still a performer costumed in a black tight shirt covered in bubble levels presses one elbow against a mirror as they lower their head to a beat. the neon green bubble levels show a shift in orientation across the performer's arms and torso.

Visual Description: A pink rubber cane with a gray stopper drapes over a bright blue acrylic stand. The simple acrylic stand is made up of an upside down u shape for the rubber cane’s handle to rest on, a vertical acrylic rod and a rectangular platform, all of which are a bright transparent blue. 

Visual Description: An exaggeratedly long gray rubber cane drapes between two a yellow transparent acrylic stands. The two yellow acrylic stands are each made up of upside down u shapes for the rubber cane’s handle and center to rest on, a vertical acrylic rod and a rectangular platform, all of which are a bright translucent yellow. The cane’s form distorts over these two stands.

Visual Description: A gray rubber cane stretches into two humps across two yellow curved acrylic forms that are held upright by vertical yellow acrylic poles

Visual Description: A transparent yellow acrylic rectangular sheet with a corresponding vertical rod sits on top of pink terrazzo. A long cylinder of light gray rubber tipped in a dark gray cane end curves where it meets the yellow acrylic plate and ground.

A zigzag pink rubber cane hovers above a black industrial stairwell on clear acrylic pegs. The cane jiggles and shakes with passersby on the stairwell. The zigzag reiterates the symbol and dimension of stairs- a highly visible architectural marker of inaccessibility.  

Visual Description: Four light blue surgical drapes on rolling armatures are set in the center of a dark room surrounded by audience members along all four walls. A white transgender performer enters wearing 15 paper patient gowns that they slowly strip out of strutting with their cane and reciting their patient history. The surgical drapes are pulled into a cube and the performer removes the last patient gown and dances to pop music obfuscated by the surgical drapes. The performance ends with the music cutting and the cold fluorescent lights coming on as the performer exhaustedly books their next doctor's appointment wearing a white fishnet bodysuit.

Visual Description: four surgical drapes are set into a cube in the center of a room with discarded paper patient gowns surrounding it. The surgical drapes appear as though moving in a breeze.  A white performer obscured by the surgical drapes dances in the center with hand flung upwards. The performer's walker sits to the left of the cube and cane is hung on one side of the cube. 

Visual Description: An outwardly exhausted performer dressed in only  a fishnet body suite holds a clipboard while leaning on their rollator and cane. A blue cube of surgical drapes wafts behind them along with discarded patient gowns scattered around the room. Captions of their voice from the performance are projected behind them on a large black wall. They are surrounded by audience members. 

Visual Description: A white performer sits on their rollator padde in light blue patient gowns. They are in front of 4 parallel surgical drapes held up by black rectangular armatures. They hold hold a clip board in one hand and have their mouth opened wide as if for a doctor to insert a tongue depressor to evaluate them. 

Visual Description: This is an Installation of the exhibition Crip Algebra in Current Space in Baltimore, MD. The image looks onto a turning corner of white walls with three linear sculptures installed. These sculptures are from Velozo's "Speculative Grab Bars" series and "Rbbr Cane" Series.

As a part of the exhibition's opening, the artist made and gave away lighters reading "Crip Algebra." These were used by audience members to activate Velozo's series of sculptures "Vigil for a Flare"- winding resin covered rope affixed with candles. This work hearkens to the experience of sick time and ability when chronic illness ebbs and flares. 

Visual Description: Brightly colored transluscent lighters marked with the words "Crip Algebra" spread across a white ground. 

It was essential to the three artists for Crip Algebra to become a gathering place for disabled community members. Often under the barriers of ableism disabled people are forced to be isolated in their experience. Sculpting candelabras that explore sick time or "crip time" (an inside community term) was central to this exhibition.

Visual Description: People of many ages, races, and abilities gather around a purple net hovering above the ground holding yellow candles. Visitors are actively lighting the net candelabra. This work is part of Velozo’s series “Vigil for a Flare.”

Visual Description: A green winding rope candelabra houses over 20 lit purple candles. The candelabra straddles a dark grey pedestal and is set against a gallery patio teeming with visitors. 

Visual Description: A black goopy background edged with pink and purple wax reads:  Closing reception & Artist discussion between Saar Shemesh & alx velozo. Sunday 6/4 3-5PM EST Current Space 421 N Howard Baltimore, MD. 4PM hybrid artist talk. ASL interpretation

Post-opening, Velozo's two candelabras were reinstalled in the exhibition space as an artifact of the disabled-centered event in which they were lit. 

Visual Description: A film of a burning matchstick structure in front of bricks is projected onto a white wall behind a net rope candelabra held up by metal tubing and cane stoppers. The orange candles have melted and cling onto the purple resined rope. 

I install this work using the same body dolly I depend upon for wheeling and fabricating work along the floor of my studio. These soft silicone rock wall grabs score my movement and touch across the periphery of the room.

Visual description: The corner of a white room is peppered with marbleized silicone rock grabs. A small surveillance tv plays documentation of the artists installing the grabs using their access device. 

I install this work using the same body dolly I depend upon for wheeling and fabricating work along the floor of my studio. These soft silicone rock wall grabs score my movement and touch across the periphery of the room.

Visual description: colorful silicon rockwall grabs are installed along the periphery of a white walled room. Two rectangles of carpet, each with one grab atop, sit on the concrete floor. 

Visual description: colorful silicon rockwall grabs are installed along the periphery of a white walled room. Two rectangles of carpet, each with one grab atop, sit on the concrete floor. 

The marbleized silicon of each casted grab in this installation constellates an architecture of touch that cannot support its participant. The softness subverts the grab’s original vertical climbing utility. 

Visual description: Close up of a cobalt blue and deep purple marbleized silicone rockwall grab on the corner molding of a white room. Four other grabs are installed but out of focus in the background corner of the room.

Visual Description: Close up of a lavender and chartreuse marbleized silicone rockwall grab. Three other grabs are installed but out of focus on the wall in the background.

Performance Description: a white performer dressed in white mesh club clothing dances across a cornstarch- covered floor with their cane. They dance to a compiled track of hospital hold lines, Johanna Hedva’s Sick Woman Theory lecture, and a disco pop ballad by Gavin Turek.

Visual Description: A white performer in a white mesh shirt dances with a lavender cane across a floor covered with cornstarch. A large black speaker looms in the corner of the room and the cornstarch holds the trace of the dancer’s movement and floor contact with their cane and feet.

Credit: deya guy-vasson

Visual Description: Two large black speakers sit in the corner of a room covered in cornstarch. The cornstarch holds the trace of the cane using dancer’s movements to a score of hold lines, Johana Hedva’s sick woman theory, and Gavin Turek’s “I’ll go the distance”

In this work, audience members are invited to hold the casted latex forms and idly imagine their own body’s edges. I consider these objects pedagogical props meant to engage a kinesthetic-driven visioning process. 

Visual Description: A shelf and a folding table with multiple tiers coated in gray paper pulp sit angled against a white corner. They hold many hand-sized rounded concrete forms coated in brightly colored latex.

I integrate drains and plugs into each staging of the casted concrete and latex forms. For me, this is a nod towards the body’s plumbing built into the sculptural environments.

Visual Description: A close up corner of a gray paper-pulp table reveals 4 Hand-sized rounded concrete forms coated in brightly colored latex surrounding a metal drain.

Visual Description: Three Hand-sized rounded concrete forms coated in bright lavender latex sit on a gray paper pulp coated shelf on a white wall. The shelf is punctuated with a rubber drain stopper.

Visual Description:  Six Hand-sized rounded concrete forms coated in brightly colored latex sit on a paper pulp tiered surface.