(Fire 1996 dir Deepa Mehta)
South Asian Queer photography project – exploring realm and location of private/public space, and the queer act of looking at oneself/reflections
OBJECTIVE
Recreating/reflecting South Asian Queer space, using photography to instill a sense of invisibility/visibility, charade, and performance. KEY WORDS: The voyeur, the subject, and the gaze.
NARRATIVE
It can be argued that the South Asian queer person is only read as queer, in relation to the space they are in, or who they are with. In hetero/public space, layers of sexuality, and codes of queerness can be lost, or erased, and it is in often only in queer space that the narrative of queer ID can be confirmed.
Often it is private space, or the construction of self made spaces, that queer persons build around themselves, that they are the most safe and therefore most visible. It is in this space, created to look at oneself, see oneself and read oneself, which I wish to explore and present as an antidote to seeing oneself reflected in (white) constructed, hetero public space. As well as, questioning the subtle shifts of public space and private space, and how the South Asian queer ID person moves through these retrospectively.
In this scene from Fire 1996 (shown above) the character Sita is able to only see herself in the image she wants to create, when she is safely within the parameters of her private space. She is able to look at herself in the mirror, see her queerness and affirm it without any relation to how others see her, or place her. The crucial moment, is when Sita is engaged with her own image, watching herself dance in the mirror, in a private moment wearing men’s clothes and seeing herself as something more than how others categorize her.
“Though it is precisely when Sita puts on the male clothing that she transforms herself, by herself, enabling her to be the agent of her own desire, and in this case, queer desire. The power of queering Sita’s brown female body, with men’s clothing effectively eradicates that she is the assumed heterosexual, passive South Asian woman that fits into her gendered role, but it does not erase her South Asian identity either. This scene of ‘disobedient dressing’ permits Sita to belong in the South Asian space, yet the jeans on her body create a space where she can be queer as well as being South Asian. The two identities do not have to be mutually exclusive; she is able to be both these identities here at once.” (Kabir. R, 2013)
These first sets of images can provide a catalyst, in which to examine South Asian queer personal space. Constructed in private moments, yet subverting the gaze of the voyeur, and still retaining control of how South Asian queer persons are allowing themselves to be read, or seen within that space. Inviting the viewer to look, without them knowing what they are seeing. In order to play with the gaze of the onlooker and ultimately the self, we can show all or only parts of one self, the suggestion of a body, or reflections of that gaze in a mirror, very abstract images that hint at the possibility of what is about to be seen. It is here then, that we are confronted with the image and gaze of the subject instead, looking at themselves. A narrative of reflecting the private space on to the public space; subverting the outsiders lens with the subjects own examination of themselves, I argue is a queer act of looking.
CONTEXT
This series should have a strong connection between, the subject, their own narrative and story, and reflection on what that means to them. A range of photo stories that explore the charade, and mirage of queer performance, and the struggle for visibility as South Asian lesbian, bisexual, trans or queer women, genderqueer persons; without facets of their identity being erased in the raced (hetero) public sphere and misinterpreted desire.
QUESTIONS:
Where would/do you feel the most safe to be South Asian and LBTQ?
Can you describe that place? Is it tangible; a physical place or object, or a person, or only a sense of location?
If you imagine yourself in your private space, public space or queer space? Do you notice the difference - where is it easier to move through? What location?
When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
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