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The Mad Bibliography by @shoroukelhariry

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Palestine Is Still The Issue

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An inquiry into artists’ pay and conditions in the public sector in response to the Artist Leaks data.

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This report into artists' pay and working conditions published by Industria and a-n The Artists Information Company reveals the extent of underpayment of artists in the UK's public art sector. Structurally F-cked draws its title and data from testimonies gathered through Artist Leaks, an anonymous online survey of visual artists conducted by Industria.

Artist Leaks received 104 responses from artists who had been contracted to deliver projects by publicly funded galleries in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The projects ranged from major commissions and solo exhibitions, to talks and education workshops.

The extensive questionnaire invited artists to share their experiences and fees, which are typically obscured from public view. The resulting data illustrates a culture of low fees, unpaid labour, and systemic exploitation. Key findings include:

An overall median hourly rate of £2.60 per hour, dramatically below the UK minimum wage of £9.50 per hour.

The median hourly rate falls to £1.88 per hour when focused on the production of artworks and exhibition-making.

76% of responses reported fees below minimum wage.

Lump-sums are a common form of payment for artists, often obfuscating the many hours of labour involved in a project.

74% of respondents stated they felt the artist fee received was 'unfair' in relation to the scale of the work.

The testimonies also reveal how artists, especially those from less privileged backgrounds, have been forced to sustain multiple additional jobs to subsidise poorly paid commissions in the public art sector, or have decided to leave the artworld entirely to protect their mental health and financial security. This supports recent data by the Office for National Statistics which reveals a rapidly shrinking proportion of working-class people in the creative sector.

Structurally F-cked concludes with proposals for new ways in which publicly funded institutions can better work with artists. It calls for commissioners to commit immediately to paying artists at least minimum wage and work towards the introduction of an 'artists and freelancers' living wage. It also appeals for a radical shift in transparency in the sector by asking institutions to provide breakdowns of 'lump sums' into hourly and daily rates.
Download and read the report

Author:

Industria

Contributors:

Lola Olufemi, Juliet Jacques, Jack Ky Tan

Publisher:

a-n The Artists Information Company

Date:

March 2023

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Structurally F-cked - a-n The Artists Information Company

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This report into artists' pay and working conditions published by Industria and a-n The Artists Information Company reveals the extent of underpayment of artists in the UK's public art sector. Structurally F-cked draws its title and data from testimonies gathered through Artist Leaks, an anonymous online survey of visual artists conducted by Industria.

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A reflection tool to use when building circles and ask everyone involved in a process works through.

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Killjoy Survival Kit

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For those of us who live at the shoreline

standing upon the constant edges of decision

crucial and alone

for those of us who cannot indulge

the passing dreams of choice

who love in doorways coming and going

in the hours between dawns

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Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research

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Kohl: a Journal for Body and Gender Research

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Woman Life Freedom

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We do not go anywhere, because we were never here.

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BLACK ANALITY
Jennifer C. Nash

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The text you write must desire me: fonts as the penultimate interactive artform,
second only to sex

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‎Takweer تكوير‎ (@takweer_) • Instagram photos and videos

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17K Followers, 187 Following, 118 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from ‎Takweer تكوير‎ (@takweer_)

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Decolonising Archives

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Read if you dare. No one is safe from the wrath of her pen.

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Queer activism and the Politics of Visibility in Israel-Palestine

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LONDON

Good News Soho | 23 Berwick St, London, W1F 8RB, UK

Reference Point | 2 Arundel St, 180 the Strand, W2CR 3DA, UK

Mosaic Rooms | 226 Cromwell Rd, London SW5 0SW

AMSTERDAM

Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum | Spui 14-16, 1012 XA Amsterdam, Netherlands

MILAN

Reading Room | Via Mincio, 10, 20139 Milano MI, Italy

BERLIN

Do you read me ?! Auguststraße 28, 10117 Berlin, Germany

CAIRO

That really cool studio | 4 Omarat Aliamni, Omar Al Khayam, Zamalek, Cairo Governorate 4270152, Egypt

JORDAN

Shams El Balad | Mu'Ath Bin Jabal Street 69, Amman 11181, Jordan

Coming soon to NY, PARIS. Stay tuned on our social channels for updates.

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LONDON Good News Soho | 23 Berwick St, London, W1F 8RB, UK Reference Point | 2 Arundel St, 180 the Strand, W2CR 3DA, UK Mosaic Rooms | 226 Cromwell Rd, London SW5 0SW AMSTERDAM Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum | Spui 14-16, 1012 XA Amsterdam, Netherlands MILAN Reading Room | Via Mincio, 10, 20139 Milano MI, Italy BERLIN Do you read me ?!

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preserve, share and research sounds and stories from Syria

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I don't need to simplify my existence to be represented

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I don't need to simplify my existence to be represented

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If all identities are constructed and defined in relation to power, how can we queer our understanding of ourselves and the spaces we occupy?

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If all identities are constructed and defined in relation to power, how can we queer our understanding of ourselves and the spaces we occupy?

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We were invited to speak at SOAS CGS (Centre for Gender Studies) in Nov 2019 -
5 of our members who have been involved from the early days, went away on their own and wrote about their journeys of making/encountering/becoming POA in the form of 'personal stories, testaments and forms of expression that embody POA and that POA has embodied'. These were presented as five different segments. What follows is a combination of those five pieces, weaved into a conversation with one another, forming a political monologue, because 'even though our politics may not always align, our existence as a collective is always political.'

to establish a "gay" identity to be accepted to be embraced There was no space for me anymore. I needed to express my Syrian nationalityto establish an "Arab" identity to be accepted to be embraced 2017, before and after: from the past to the future and back

Its 2008 and i needed a lot of things, I needed to express my sexuality

to be heard. I moved to London.
It's 2012 and I needed a lot of things,
I had nowhere to go.

We started in 2017 as a response, a reaction to London Pride - the year before we felt very disengaged from and underrepresented and decided to come back the following year with a group of MENA people and march. We started with about 70 people and grew from there. The year after, our conversations evolved and we felt London Pride was not the platform for us, and we felt that we should be presenting ourselves in spaces that are more representative of our communities and identities. We were at Black Pride the year after - our network grew, conversations evolved and became a lot more based on queerness, temporality and how we embody this experience as diasporic people from the region living in london. From London Pride, to black pride to no pride

hey you, the mirror on the wall, what do you see? confront me

however stay with me cause you know I'll fade away without you
cause you know that i'm an insane weirdo with an unstoppable rambling mind, who no one else can really understand, except you
i know it's really tough with all the expectant, demanding voices around, to hear each other
I know other judgmental and prying eyes, prevent ours from meeting freely.
it's kind of more on my shoulders. they tend to make me want to block my ears and close my eyes so as not to hear and see their ridiculousness that causes me to cringe with disgust at their pittiful limits
and that's why I don't get to see all the colour and hope that you are holding
so you got to call me, reach out to me remind me to open my eyes and look at you
then you get to, you ought to, confront me
but you got to promise to stay with me
i'll fade away without you
Diary entry from one afternoon in the past

My moving through the world was a reaction to the world reacting to my body. You are a woman before you are a person. Then a woman from a particular country, ethnicity, of a particular size and sexual orientation and people have a ready-made interaction for you and your personhood is downgraded to the categorization they've chosen for you. I'm a reproductive body, a womb or a vagina to fuck, that's almost universal but then I came here and all of a sudden I had an Arab vagina and the tits to match, apparently I'm also a POC now. I'm also of a different class. The privileges and protections of my socioeconomic status were chipped at, because those cross borders like a bad foreign exchange rate. All these things to count and account for before you could become a person.

Rendering the real you invisible. So visibility becomes a fight against what people are already seeing. You have to make someone unlearn how they see you rather than having the freedom to build yourself for yourself from the ground up. When you meet someone you're not starting at zero. They've already gone to 100 and you have to make them work backwards. Just being becomes a "luxury"- you must do your work and the work of others, for others.

Sometime maybe 1997; a flashback/memory first recalled sometime this summer, 2019

It's the middle of the night

I am standing in my parents room

My mum is deep asleep

My dad is snoring

I know I have to wake her up but I cannot

I am petrified, absolutely silent

I try to call her

But no voice comes out

Just my lips bumping against each other twice, mouthing mama

I take a step closer and try again, but no voice comes out

I stop breathing

I want to hear what it sounds like if I am not here

Where can I go what can I do

How do I disappear

I wish, as she often wished upon me, hands and face raised to god, that I would die right now

I am wet and numb

It's 2017

it's pride day I'm in full drag strutting down Bernard street.

Russell Square, pride march meeting point.

A Sameera Tawfiq fantasy, Cinched to the gods, black tights in 11inch platforms

my heart is about to leap out of my chest

I get to the park I pause

"what in the fuck are you doing?" I tell myself.

I carry on.

That day Russell Square shifted. It stopped being the park next to the museum. A common meeting point for my soas people.

Yet exactly as it always is.

But something in it shifted. Something in my perception shifted. In front of me was another possibility to the park.

Little I knew back then, these few steps, this conscious act of moving, will change my life they will give me a possibility of futures I didn't know existed.

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We were invited to speak at SOAS CGS (Centre for Gender Studies) in Nov 2019 - 5 of our members who have been involved from the early days, went away on their own and wrote about their journeys of making/encountering/becoming POA in the form of 'personal stories, testaments and forms of expression that embody POA and that POA has embodied'.

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FRIENDLY, NON-JUDGMENTAL SPACE FOR SHARING AND PEER SUPPORT
UPDATES AND MORE DETAILS ON IG @PRIDEOFARABIA

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"We’re still animals. You get your nutrients from destroying something else, whether that’s a plant or a protein, right? Well, I think the same goes creatively, spiritually. You need to break some shit to rebuild.”

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The Drag Race winner opens up about her experience with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome - and her continuing commitment to make boundary-breaking art.

Yvie Oddly is thinking about rage rooms.

"There are these whole studios where you can pay to go demolish stuff now," the drag queen excitedly tells me one Friday evening this August, leaning back on a small couch in an airy Brooklyn photo studio. "It's so wild to think that somebody would pay to break things. But I think it's this release that we need in our life because so much of it is about structure. So much of our lives is about building and order. But inherently, humans come from chaos."

"We're still animals," she continues, now fully indulging the tangent. "You get your nutrients from destroying something else, whether that's a plant or a protein, right? Well, I think the same goes creatively, spiritually. You need to break some shit to rebuild."

That seems to have become something of a guiding tenet for Yvie in the years since she won RuPaul's Drag Race season 11. As we start our conversation, the drag performer has just come off an hours-long photo shoot, where she got to "live [her] gay-ass Tyra Banks fantasy" while playing in a delightful array of edgy looks. The storyboards for the shoot, she explains, were about "genderfuckery," "lots of colors," and "things that weren't either traditionally in or out of drag" like jockstraps and ball-gags. "It felt very much in tune with what I'm trying to do in my life in general," she says. "I just want to break some shit!"

Admittedly, Yvie has always been known for her boundary-breaking aesthetic. Even in season 11, much of her storyline revolved around the tension between her and her fellow competitors, many of whom just didn't seem to understand her personal style. As she tells me now, "I was on a season full of pageant bitches in pageant gowns."

Yvie, on the other hand, preferred "going against the grain," as she puts it. "That's what my drag is about. It's about cutting against what people expect." But among that particular set of queens, Yvie's mentality only made her an outsider. In an interview with NYLON earlier this year, she said that winning season 11 meant all the more because she "didn't necessarily have a lot of support going through the season."

As a winner, Yvie could accept that everything about her run was worth it. When she returned to the fold this summer for a special season of the show's beloved All Stars spinoff, she did so as a bona fide representative of the franchise. But after a seemingly jubilant run, Yvie shocked followers with Instagram Story posts criticizing the show's editing, writing that it misrepresented her experience living with chronic illness.

And now, for the first time, she's ready to share her full side of the story.

It's been over three years since Yvie secured her crown and scepter, back in 2019, when she triumphed over fellow finalist Brooke Lynn Hytes in a spirited, body-contorting lip-sync to Lady Gaga's "The Edge of Glory." The performance was emblematic of her unique appeal, finding Yvie quite literally bending over backward for the win. When RuPaul announced her name at the episode's conclusion, she playfully responded, "Follow your oddities and fly your freak flag!"

She's been working consistently since her win, somehow finding time to write, record, and release a full-length album (2020's Drag Trap) in between her duties on the Werq the World international tour and her stint, in 2020 and 2021, headlining the popular RuPaul's Drag Race LIVE! Las Vegas residency stage show. (She also appeared in a spinoff docuseries based around that Vegas show, 2020's RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue.) She's been quite busy, never really having left the public eye. Still, few things could push her back into the international spotlight quite like a return to the reality competition show that initially launched her to fame.

"That's what my drag is about. It's about cutting against what people expect."

That happened earlier this year, when Yvie, along with seven other previous winners, returned to Hollywood's Sunset Las Palmas Studios to compete in the franchise's first-ever "all-winners" edition of RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars. Framed around an interesting premise - no one would be eliminated, allowing all eight contestants to compete until the bitter end - the show was a massive success. Diehard fans found the update refreshing, providing a welcomed spin on a formula that has been frustratingly limiting in the past. Without weekly dismissals, the entire series had a much lighter energy; on screen, the queens seemed to find it easier to bond, as well. Even the judges appeared to be enjoying themselves - gone were the sometimes scathing critiques that had come to define past All Stars seasons; in their place: an apparently bottomless well of praise.

But according to Yvie, this uplifting spirit was largely a facade. Behind the scenes, she claims, it was business as usual - negative critiques and all - and the fact that this harsher version of the show is not what ended up airing for audiences around the world feels dishonest, in her opinion.

At the beginning of August, just days after the All Stars 7 finale, in which Jinkx Monsoon was crowned the season's "Queen of All Queens," Yvie aired several grievances on Instagram. "I truly wish you could've seen even a quarter of the REAL journey we experienced together (instead of all the strategy BS)," she wrote in a since-expired Story post.

In a later Story, she added, "TBH my experience was pretty gruesome from the start. And while you can be assured that 'none of that will make the edit,' it doesn't change anything in the moment. Going back I learned a lot about myself, as I was forced to question whether or not I fit into this specific world (even as a winner). But instead of showing ANY of that struggle (or really any reason for me to be there), I've been lobotomized and presented as some goofy big-dicked mascot, bravely laughing through my chronic illness, happy to be along for the ride."

Today, as she returns from a cigarette break to come to sit across from me, she is in an upbeat mood. Her now-infamous laugh (a deep bellow she compares to Goofy) has been reverberating throughout the studio for hours.

"It's been a long time since I've felt as human as I have over these past few months," she tells me about the time since All Stars 7 started airing. "It's been a rebirth. I'm very glad that I've had the chance to have some more public exposure, and for people to be able to see me in a new light, because it's really helped invigorate, for me, the reason why I started all this." It means even more after being away from the stage for so long because of the pandemic. "Coming out of that and getting to hit the ground running and go all these places and share so many experiences with people again, it reminded me of the human element of why I did this - beyond the TV show, beyond the lights, the flashiness, beyond the free drinks."

Unfortunately, however, she can't say the same thing about watching the show. Now getting "completely candid," Yvie admits that reliving All Stars wasn't great. "I was really disappointed having to go through this experience again, because I felt like there was a lack of any sort of reality or humanity in what I got," she tells me. Although season 11 had been rough for the performer - both on screen (the conflict with her fellow competitors) and off (the negative, at-times violent feedback she received from the fandom) - Yvie reveals that she still preferred the experience of watching her original run, even "with all the chaotic drama that season brought up, with all the death threats and the nasty shit I got in my inbox," she says.

When prodded further, Yvie admits that what many viewers thought to be All Stars 7 's crowning achievement - its focus on positivity and friendship, and its embrace of different kinds of drag - was actually painful for her. Not because Yvie was opposed to having her drag celebrated but because she thinks that was a disingenuous portrayal of what actually took place. According to her, the judgment was just as tough for the all-winners edition as it had been for any other season.

"Literally, from the jump, from the first week, the first runways, the first performances, I was getting comments [from the judges] like, 'Oh that's your boy-body,' 'Oh, why are you wearing tiny hair,' 'Oh, I don't really understand what you're doing,' 'Oh, I don't like your style,'" she shares. That these comments never made it to air didn't erase them from her memory.

Looking back on it now, Yvie says she didn't understand the confusion around her style. "I thought we already played out that I'm the weirdo... that I'm going to do the drag that got me here in the first place, and that it's not going to be the curvy woman body fantasy that you're always looking for," she says. "Drag is so much bigger than that. Not only to me, but to all the people I've gotten to meet around the world."

"It's been a long time since I've felt as human as I have over these past few months. It's been a rebirth."

She had thought her win was a testament to this more expansive definition of drag, describing her 2019 victory as "a crack in the mirror" of the larger franchise. "It literally was. It was a crack in the perfection of it," she stresses. "We've had weird queens win before me. I was far from the first. But I think what I did was do it so chaotically, so unpolished, and with only one win, to show people that the odds are always unpredictable, and that sometimes, the most exciting thing in life is the problem. I was the problem of season 11."

Returning for All Stars 7 was always meant to be a continuation of that. "I wanted to come back and throw up a middle finger and be like, 'Yeah, that's right, you crowned me for being a fuck-up," she says. "But then, from the jump, the judges were like, 'Why are you fucking up?'"

Yvie thinks that at least some of this treatment stems from the judges' overall lack of familiarity with her brand as a drag artist, which she blames in part on the show becoming "oversaturated." Season 11 "was literally the last season that those judges filmed before they started doing two and three, four, five, six seasons a year," she points out. "When I went on the first time, it made sense that they didn't know any of us because they don't know any of us. But coming back is supposed to be [about] giving you a platform to celebrate what you do and show who you are. It was very strange for me to have people who were treating me like it was my first time, like this is my first experience, like I'm a baby all over again."

She shouldered that while filming. But as she watched the season back, failing to locate any evidence of that experience in the final cut, she felt invalidated. It didn't help that, to her, the edits were shaping her out to be a perpetual "goofball," a label she gladly accepts - but not when that's all that's shown of her. "It kind of feels like a caricature," she says.

She points to one "reductive" incident, in particular: this season's roast, during which a large majority of the jokes about Yvie were about her penis size. "The amount of footage they left in from my sisters talking about me having a big dick is ridiculous in comparison to the amount of footage that they captured of my sisters lifting me up, helping me continue to stay focused, and combating the norms, combating the judges, fighting the producers," she says. "There's so much deeper shit that could have been caught." (World of Wonder Productions, which produces Drag Race, All Stars, and other franchise spinoffs, did not respond to requests for comment.)

Yvie isn't the first queen to express displeasure with her portrayal on the reality series. Since the show's earliest seasons, contestants have complained about what they perceive as unfair edits, whether it's Latrice Royale's comments about a misrepresented conversation on All Stars 4 or The Vixen's fourth wall-breaking resistance to a " villain edit" waiting to happen in season 10. In 2016, Phi Phi O'Hara told Vulture that the producers and editors for All Stars 2 "just made me look like another backstabbing manipulative monster," accusing them of withholding crucial context for vital plot developments. The trend of queens pushing back against their onscreen depictions has become so pervasive, in fact, that even RuPaul, ever the cheeky troll, capitalized on it: last year, he released a single called "Blame It On the Edit." It's exactly what it sounds like.

For Yvie, though, things went deeper than the edit. There were other, more personal issues that exacerbated her disappointment. Since Yvie first appeared on Drag Race, she has been transparent about her years-long struggle with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS), a chronic illness that affects the body's connective tissues. It was an integral part of her storyline the first time around, partially because the illness, in a sort of twisted way, has played a crucial role in what has become her signature performance style. Like many people living with EDS, Yvie has hypermobile joints that are prone to dislocation. When first diagnosed by a doctor, she recalls responding, "Oh! That's why I can do all my cool party tricks!" (The doctor wisely advised her against it.)

"I have to do these things, because when I put on the makeup and when I put on the heels and when I'm on stage, even though I don't feel as invincible as I used to, I still feel so fucking close."

Now, she reveals that, even during that first franchise appearance, the competition had already started to take a serious physical toll. "Going on season 11 was the first time I really felt my body starting to disintegrate," she admits. "I felt myself not being capable of things, whereas every time I'd gotten on a stage in my life before then, I felt invincible. I felt capable of doing anything. That's why I often do shit I can't."

And it's only become more difficult to manage since then. "It's gotten harder because it's a degenerative disorder. It's not going to get any better," she says, her voice now dropping an octave, as if it pains her to speak this truth in anything above a whisper. This inevitability became clear during the pandemic. "We literally had a year of not doing anything outside of our houses and I was still going through it. There were still days that I'd have to spend all [of it] in bed or in a bath because, like, everything's on fire." There's now a noticeable tremble in her voice, like she's fighting back tears. "I dislocated my shoulder, my wrist, my knees, my back. Like... everything is falling apart."

The condition has made it hard, if not impossible, for Yvie to perform the sort of gravity-defying, body-bending, bone-snapping dance moves on which she has built her reputation. "Now, I can't even get through a fucking chorus of choreography before I'm like, 'Okay, I'm just going to walk for the next three minutes,'" she bemoans. "I've become so much worse of a performer, and that feels bad to be like, Oh, you're actively getting worse at your job. You're getting worse at your passion. But I can't stop being passionate about it, right?"

That's probably why she can't find it in herself to stop. "Even though it's not the right answer, I don't have it in me to not be a performer," she admits. "I have to do these things, because when I put on the makeup and when I put on the heels and when I'm on stage, even though I don't feel as invincible as I used to, I still feel so fucking close. I feel so close to being the perfect version of myself... It's not until I have to go home, or have to get on a plane to go to the next show, that I'm feeling exactly all the damage I'm doing to myself. But I don't know how to say no."

Which is why she eagerly went back for All Stars, treating it like a last hurrah. "It was just so disappointing because this is the last time I'm ever going to do that. It's the last time I could ever physically do that," she says. "So to see so much of that experience cut short and cut out, and to see myself essentially just being a placeholder for a real competitor... I just feel like it was such a waste... I just wish I could be proud looking back at what I've done."

Thankfully, Yvie has emerged from that challenging experience with a group of new, true sisters. "That really is the lasting power," she says of the bonds she forged with her fellow competitors this time around - a marked difference from season 11. "The girls are so important because it's all I had."

She recalls one conversation that didn't fully make it to air, during which the queens talked about experiencing imposter syndrome after winning their respective seasons. "It's something that we all shared and it was just so humanizing to be seen by these other artists, people who I had watched since high school, [and hear them say], 'I understand this is all a TV show, but you're fantastic, and I love what you do and I see you.'"

Their support has made it easier for Yvie to look ahead. When asked if she's now been forced to face the reality that her performing career may have an expiration date, she responds, "It's something I think about a lot more often now than I ever wanted to." ("Like, after every show," she adds with a laugh.) Much of the joy she's experienced over these past few months has only been possible because she's been, as she puts it, "pretending that my body isn't holding me back, pretending my glue is still as strong as it was on day one" - for one last time.

The art will continue, she promises. Yvie will be coming out with a new EP in early 2023. But she knows that the shape her work takes may be forced to evolve. "Half of me has been going hard to say goodbye to all the things that I love," she says solemnly. "But half of me has been just trying to take a step back and take it slower and absorb what's around me."

All things considered, she's optimistic. "I actually do have a lot more hope than I ever did before, because I might not always get to wear the heels that I like and I might not always be able to do the tricks that I like, but there are still so many experiences I've had that I never thought I'd get that are feeding my soul," she says, adding a glimmer of hope to the end of our conversation. "I just want to keep making art. I'll make music. I'll make stupid videos. I'll paint. I'll draw. I was an artist before and I'll be an artist until I'm dead." She laughs. "And hopefully a little bit after."

No matter what happens, Yvie Oddly knows she can build herself back up. She just wants to break some shit first.

Photographer: James Emmerman
Styling: Gabriel Held
Hair: John Novotny
Makeup: Laurel Charleston

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The Drag Race winner opens up about her experience with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome - and her continuing commitment to make boundary-breaking art. Yvie Oddly is thinking about rage rooms. "There are these whole studios where you can pay to go demolish stuff now," the drag queen excitedly tells me one Friday evening this August, leaning back on a small couch in an airy Brooklyn photo studio.

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What is most personal is most universal

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BODIES ORBITING AFFECT EACH OTHER

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Aaah! You tryna be mutually vulnerable? That's some freaky shit, I'm with it. 

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Aaah! You tryna be mutually vulnerable? That's some freaky shit, I'm with it. 

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#anarchospirituality

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They Call It Love

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MANIFESTOS: Architecture for a New Generation
"What does the future of the city look like for the next generation of Londoners?"

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فقط صداست که می‌ماند

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فقط صداست که می‌ماند

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Only Voice Remains is an Iranian collective operating with transnational, queer and feminist values. They came together in response to the current revolution taking place in Iran and Kurdistan against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their most recent project sets out to amplify the radical narratives of the current moment and seek collective strategies of resistance. Materials were gathered from an open call and online research, then into a 1 hour sound piece comprising of voice notes, poetry, music, readings, reflections, protest sounds and speeches. Only Voice Remains hopes to use their sonic projects as an archive as well as a starting point for workshops and collective reflections.

No tracklist provided

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Playing Spoken Word, Field Recordings. Only Voice Remains is an Iranian collective operating with transnational, queer and feminist values. They came together in response to the current revolution taking place in Iran and Kurdistan against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

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A Lifepath Cree Story

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Doing Queer Politics Between Islamophobia and Political Islam

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NAFS.SPACE is a hub for creative Queers from the SWANA 

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NAFS.SPACE is a hub for creative Queers from the SWANA 

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The NAFS (نَفْس) in Arabic translates to the self, the ego, the soul.

Stemming from Sufistic wisdom, it is defined in three stages: the process of development, refinement and mastery of the NAFS (نَفْس ).

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Through the many conversations we've had with people who have come into contact with Pride of Arabia (POA), we realised it's time for a retrospective, an honest conversation about how this group has evolved over the last few years. There were a couple of reasons why it was created, one was a desire to meet and connect with other queer people from the region and the other was to march in London Pride. We didn't feel seen or represented in the London LGBTQ scene so we marched and we got to meet a lot of people. Approximately 70 people marched and danced and sang together for the first time that day. We realised that it was hard to trust so many strangers when we were taught to be suspicious of each other. We also realised that London Pride was not the right place for us. It was exclusionary and overrun by corporations. Our participation was also an interesting exercise in negotiating visibility. A lot of us concealed our identities, there were those who had not come out to their families, others who were afraid of their governments. Why then did our queerness have to exist within this uncomfortable dynamic? At that point, we didn't know how else to be queer but coming into direct contact with that tension forced us to reconsider and be creative in carving out a different kind of space for ourselves, one that had no pre-existing mould. The parties were important. They are a place of resistance and expression, a space to overcome the false idea that we had to pick one or the other (our ethnic/racial/cultural/religious identities or our sexualities and gender expressions). We can be both at the same time, we can be all of it at once. There is no need to compromise.

The physical release of dancing, sweating, moving and laughing together felt like a balm on an old wound. We often heard people saying that they never thought they would meet other people like them or that they could inhabit a space that allows for their queerness and Arabness/Middle Easternness simultaneously. It has been beautiful to witness and experience. But there were also incidents of xenophobia, misogyny and transphobia. We understood that there was no such thing as a safe space but only safe(r) spaces and it would be uninformed to assume that a club space with over 300people would not come with its complications. So we tried harder to articulate our politics and the politics of our spaces; all the things we wouldn't stand for and the things we couldn't take for granted. Our development as people coincided with the development of POA, quite frequently as a result of our work within it as a collective. We went to Black Pride the year after and felt far more comfortable, proud to see fellow QTIPOCs so wonderfully organise and express themselves in hostile environments. But then we started to question the very notion of "pride" and the "coming out" narrative. Not engaging with either of those didn't mean that we were ashamed of who we were or any less queer. Not being visible on social media wasn't simply an issue of fear, or a lack of commitment to queer politics. it is a complicated negotiation with our situations. So while some were comfortable doing it on the gram (being out, visible, vocal), others chose to do their work through other channels and on other frontlines, where they were seen and heard within the community. It is important to create a space where both approaches are seen as valid.

As we slowly developed the language to communicate this, we were being invited to speak at public events and to hold workshops. Every time, we were nervous, doubtful of ourselves and what we had to say. Who were we to talk to university students or audience members? The insecurity partially came from the white heterosexist capitalist patriarchy (thanks bell hooks) but also because we were in a process of becoming. We were shifting and morphing and our ideas were changing more rapidly than our language could keep up with. What good are ideas if you cannot communicate them clearly? There is too much emphasis on words and often the knowledge came from moving together and holding each other and saying nothing at all. But we spoke some more, engaged with others, read some things, felt as deeply as possible and the language started coming. It was liberating to realise that the language didn't just have to be words, it was also the looks and the energy and the visuals, the physical expressions of touch and movement, the love and empathy and compassion. It was being critical and constantly questioning, finding peace in knowing there was no particular destination we needed to arrive at. Every time we were scheduled to do a public event, we would spend days discussing what the 2-3 lines of a POA bio should be and every time it would be a little different. What a relief to realise you don't have to wait for certainty in order to express who you are, to be in a constant state of fluidity and flux. It was great to work with a number of institutions who knew we disliked institutions and their conventions and power dynamics, and still gave us the space to be a work-in-progress in a public setting (our gratitude to the organisers of these events, they were the ones invested in making this happen and not the institutions).

We discussed space, race, queerness, language, movement and what it means to be non-normative. We also started holding and recording intimate conversations with the amazing performers who came to our community spaces. Then there were the book clubs that provided us with a different kind of intimacy, a space for thoughts and words and themes that always intersected and were never limited to issues of identity and categorisation.

Most importantly however, we got questioned by others. About the name, the events, the visuals. That's a great place to be - at the receiving end of questions and questioning. It forces you to think about what you're doing and where you stand. The name we didn't take too seriously, it was tongue-in-cheek and even if we don't feel at home in pride parades and know that "Arab" is a historically constructed identity that entails a lot of violence and exclusion, it's good to remember how much our thinking has evolved over the years and to not take ourselves too seriously OR cover our tracks because we are ashamed of a previous version of ourselves. But it's also important to acknowledge the impact words have. It's why we're writing this piece. To share with you that this constant dialogue we've been having with everybody we've ever been in contact with has helped us to grow and transform and that we are sooo grateful for it. If it wasn't for this continuous exchange we wouldn't have been able to organise activities or go to talks and express our desire for another way of being. It's exhausting to constantly have to fight to create our own spaces to be who we are but it's also a wonderful act of imagination and solidarity. Boxes have always been created for the comfort of the majority/authorities, but in finding each other (the ones who don't neatly fit into boxes) - we can live outside them, on top of them, juggle them, colour inside their lines, and exist in all the ways we find nourishing. May we never stop becoming.

We can be both at the same time, we can be all of it at once. There is no need to compromise.

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Through the many conversations we've had with people who have come into contact with Pride of Arabia (POA), we realised it's time for a retrospective, an honest conversation about how this group has evolved over the last few years.

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How do you throw a brick through the window of a bank if you can’t get out of bed?

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How do you throw a brick through the window of a bank if you can’t get out of bed?

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https://topicalcream.org/features/sick-woman-theory/

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Nooriyah | Boiler Room London: Middle of Nowhere

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Poetry Is Not a Luxury, Audre Lorde (1985)

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The Q ueen Boat Case in Egypt: Sexuality, National Security and State Sovereignty (2007)

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Vulnerability as a Political Language (2018)

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Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving? Lila Abu-Lughod (2002)

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The uses of the Erotic, Audre Lorde

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Digital Security Resources - EQUALITY LABS

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Donate Home Research Trainings Unlearning Caste Supremacy Digital Security Coronajihad Caste in the United States Facebook India