They are placed eight feet apart and at the height of the waist of an average male NBA athlete at about forty-six inches. Each sculpture represents two active stances frozen in time like a classical bronze from antiquity. The positioning brings forth the idea of closeness and sports’ relationship to intimacy. Stripped of its body, the focus is on the erotic zone, asking the viewer: is this affection, and/or is this play? The two sculptures read more like a romantic couple than opponents. At first, it can seem as though I’m critiquing sports culture, but I believe the work's role is to provide insight into what is taking place; the work offers another perspective that is coexisting alongside the macho aesthetics and bravado of basketball. There’s tenderness and a commitment to their direct opponent akin to a romantic relationship. There’s an obsession a player must have with their partner, studying their behaviors, weaknesses, and mannerisms. There’s a continuous exchange of fluids and touching that has been deemed appropriate and seemingly consensual. However, there’s a blurriness in what is just for the sport versus desire.

The interior of the shorts is lined with rose quartz and moonstones, which are believed by some to encourage universal love; restoration of trust; harmony in relationships; unconditional love; nourishing power, passion, awakening feminine energies, and sensuality respectively. The same hormones, dopamine, and serotonin, are released while in love and while playing sports. They are the hormones of attraction that involve the brain pathways that control “reward” behavior, which is why both feel exhilarating and even all-consuming.

When placed in a different context like a museum, players are no longer protected by the hypermasculinity of the basketball court and this common silhouette can take on alternate meanings. This work offers space for queerness, tenderness, and love to be centered in the sport by exposing a truth that already exists. Additionally, a five-minute single-channel video under the same title Nonsus (No Ordinary Love), composed of archival footage from moments in NBA games further articulates this connection in the installation, displaying intimacy in various forms be it ironic, consensual, aggressive, or tender. Simultaneously audio of Sade’s No Ordinary Love has been tuned down and slowed down.