HIS/HER/THEIR STORIES by

Welcome!

k_dunstone — 2021-02-09 11:46:55 UTC

Who are your LGBTQIA+ influences and icons? We want to celebrate the creative influences that have formed our work, and share these with each other!

Please Note...

k_dunstone — 2021-02-09 11:49:12 UTC

This Padlet will be shared within the university, and a lasting record embedded in the Art and Performance EDI Moodle page. Please only share what you are comfortable sharing publicly.

How to Share

k_dunstone — 2021-02-09 11:49:17 UTC

There's no need to login to share your work! Click on the plus + sign in the bottom right corner, then paste in links/images/add text as you would like. Clicking on the three dots in the bottom right corner brings up lots of options for sharing media. All disciplines and media are welcome!

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k_dunstone — 2021-02-09 11:49:21 UTC

Posts are anonymous by default. Add your name as the title of your post to ensure proper credit.

Comments are open on posts, please be respectful when commenting on work. Links to research/ideas/practitioners of interest are strongly encouraged!

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HIS/HER/THEIR STORIES

k_dunstone — 2021-02-11 13:56:03 UTC

Sadé Mica

2021-02-12 00:18:39 UTC

https://www.sademica.com/
Sadé Mica is a non-binary artist based in and around Manchester. They create film pieces based in different locations around the British countryside in which they explore the self and the physical body; as well as intricate textile works featuring embroidery. Many of Mica’s films have the same sets of physical movements in them, it seems as if they use these to settle into the visual and physical differences that come with a natural space compared to the bleakness of the city of Manchester. Their textile pieces explore the culture of binding in the queer community as well as the difficult topics that come with being trans and dressing oneself.
(Mollie F)

Ben Barry

k_dunstone — 2021-02-12 10:46:13 UTC

Barry's article "Fabulous Masculinities: Refashioning the Fat and Disabled Male Body", while not perfect, has been a valuable starting point for discussions of fashion, the construction of masculinity, and disability in the CP2 Fashioning Identities unit.

Barry, B. (2019). Fabulous Masculinities: Refashioning the Fat and Disabled Male Body. Fashion Theory, 23(2), 275–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2019.1567064
(Library login may be required to access)

Kate D

Tessa Boffin

evakarkutlaw — 2021-02-13 14:27:47 UTC

really good article here which is a great introduction to Tessa Boffin's work. She was a British lesbian artist in the the late 80s and early 90s who made work responding to the AIDS crisis very early on. She published a book on the topic with Sunil Gupta but has not achieved the same recognition he has.
Eva

https://hyperallergic.com/505433/how-tessa-boffin-one-of-the-leading-lesbian-artists-of-the-aids-crisis-vanished-from-history/

SOPHIE

ashlbbh — 2021-02-15 12:20:01 UTC

SOPHIE is a pop/electronic transgender musician who has created an authentic and specific movement in the music industry. Her work explores connecting abstract audio with hyper-realistic visuals. Unapologetically flaunts being transgender and has refused to ever conform, very inspiring in helping LGBTQIA+ people understand and own their identity. This makes her recent passing very emotional for thousands across the world. I’ve attached a really interesting interview with her that helps give you an idea of how brilliant she is.
https://www.papermag.com/sophie-pride-2579165152.html?rebelltitem=33#rebelltitem33

Ash Taylor

Max Colby

2021-02-15 21:35:40 UTC

MAD Artist-in-Residence Max Colby creates maximal works of textiles, embroidery, and painting that examine social themes through a queer lens. Their series of intricate embroideries and textile assemblages subvert craft forms and techniques traditionally tied to domestic, religious, and ceremonial settings. At MAD, Colby further developed a new series that considers trans and non-binary identity and is inspired by funeral wreaths and ceremonial altarpieces.

Jack Halberstam

2021-02-16 11:00:55 UTC

Jack Halberstam’s writings offer multi-pronged investigations into the structures that surround and derive from queer bodies and identities. His book ‘In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives’ examines notions of a queered relationship to time and space, brought about by the separation of queer lives from heteronormative domestic and temporal expectations. Placing the transgender body right at the centre of a study into art and culture, Halberstam highlights the constraints of a gendered, normative, society on our relationship to time. Halberstam’s work really excites me in its willingness to restructure terminology and thoroughly explore the position of queerness (both as a term and identity) in our society through an anti-capitalist and decolonial lens. His most recent book ‘Wild Things: The disorder of desire’ places queerness alongside the wild, playing the two terms off one another and delving into their historical associations, something I’m keen to keep in consideration for my own work. A careful weaving together of cultural icons and figures in and amongst denser theory keeps Halberstam’s writing both immediately relevant and accessible! Attached is a Frieze article with Halberstam in conversation about his newest book where he briefly touches on the gay man <3 capitalism problem, alongside this is a great article from Ben Miller on the Capitalist forces that help sustain the modern homosexual identity for more good words on the topic!

https://www.frieze.com/interview/jack-halberstam-wild-things-disorder-of-desire

https://thebaffler.com/latest/the-life-and-death-of-modern-homosexuality-miller

Gabriel Kidd

LEIGH BOWERY

xaviermawerxm — 2021-02-16 12:14:40 UTC

Leigh Bowery is known for his strange and wonderful approach to art, fashion, and nightlife. His performances often shocked audiences for their unapologetically queer attitude and sometimes graphic nature. His now highly influential “club kid” approach to fashion has sent ripples through culture which can still be felt now. His fashion is what he is most known for, creating strange and wonderful almost drag looks sometimes only to go out clubbing in, and they had to be as challenging for the viewer (and Leigh) as possible.
Xavier Mawer

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/i-d.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/4aga9m/7-of-leigh-bowerys-most-iconic-looks

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/aug/13/sex-sin-and-sausages-the-debauched-brilliance-of-leigh-bowery

James Stephanie Sterling

2021-02-16 12:34:04 UTC

Stephanie is a non-binary trashgirl games critic with the dubious honour of being the most famous person from the London town of Erith. They rose to prominence writing online in the midst of the reactionary hate mobs of the early 2010's. However, unlike other irreverent British games critics of the era, Sterling’s politics never quite sunk into that salt marsh of online hate.

Instead, following a 2015 discussion of videogame romance, they have become a highly visible pansexual, polyamorous, and queer figure in an otherwise incredibly hostile scene. In the August of 2020 they came out as non-binary, and during the intervening years they provided an uncompromising account of the many injustices of the games industry ranging from targeted gambling mechanics to worker abuse.

For a lot of people who grew up as part of online spaces wracked by the hard right turn of certain sections of the gaming community it can feel like pure luck that we didn’t fall down into that well of reactionary spite. In that regard Stephanie can feel like a sort of anchor. A reminder that, even if you didn't know it yet, there was a very good reason you didn’t buy into that cult of hate.

They also, almost inexplicably, are a championship holding indie wrestling supervillain. We all await with bated breath the sheer scale of non-binary finery they will bring once matches start up again.

Cynan Juniper Orton

Kate Bornstein

2021-02-16 15:50:19 UTC

Kate Bornstein is an influential gender theorist and gender non-conformist. In their most influential book, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us, they document their transition through life all with an added dash of gender theory.

Gender theory can be inaccessible to a lot of people due to language and complicated explanations. However, Gender Outlaw is one of the most accessible gender theory books I have read, I urge everyone to read this. Also the title is Gender Outlaw so why wouldn't you want to read it?

A quote that has stuck with me since the first time I read this book is:

"It was the absence of a feeling, rather than its presence, that convinced me to change my gender."

This quote changed my perception of my own transition and gender identity, there was a great comfort in seeing another trans person describe exactly how I feel.

-Rudy Tomala

claude cahun

florianlehunte — 2021-02-17 15:43:25 UTC

born in 1894 as lucie schwob, the artist chose the name claude cahun in 1917 to be deliberately androgynous and confusing. they spent their career making surrealist self portraits and photomontages with their life partner marcel moore (her step-sister, born suzanne malherbe). her multi-disciplinary work explores her jewish lesbian identity, and her experience of gender, writing in her surrealist auto-biography that 'neuter is the only gender that always suits me'.

she also distributed anti-nazi materials in france during the second world war, remaining assuredly and consistently herself until her death in 1954.

-florian le hunte

david wojnarowicz

florianlehunte — 2021-02-17 16:10:36 UTC

david wojnarowicz's writing is vicious, it feels like smoke and grime, drawing from his experiences of homelessness, hustling and cruising in 70s and 80s new york and the aids crisis that killed. 'close to the knives' explores all this in rambling detail. his writing style and the angry, unapologetic energy it has has influenced my work greatly. the detail in which he documents exactly what his life was like in the turbulent time is heart-breaking, including tiny domestic moments that give a true sense of his lived experience.
-florian le hunte

Quentin Crisp

2021-02-17 19:46:04 UTC

Famed for his sharp wit and eccentric lifestyle, English raconteur Quentin Crisp confronted heterosexual audiences with brazen honesty about his homosexual lifestyle. Crisp wrote several books, acted in multiple movies, and starred in a long running one-person stage show. The fascination Crisp cultivated about his life endured until his death, one month before his 91^st birthday.

Residing between both the USA and UK, Crisp’s cunning observations about class, sexuality, gender, culture, and society, continue to provide a fascinating insight into the uncompromising life experience of one who was visibly queer, pre and post-legalization of homosexuality in the UK.

- Louie Woodcock

Catherine Opie

2021-02-18 11:30:37 UTC

Catherine Opie is a contemporary photographer that rejects the stereotypical understandings and societal boundaries of sapphic relationships and women's bodies, through their visceral and abject style. Opie's cathartic use of photography and performance allows for her authentic experiences and self to be laid bare without being tainted by wider interpretations. She frequently frames her subjects (including her self) against a flattened space, removing the exterior of the world around and allowing for the interior of the subjects self to be realised and at the forefront. Opie focuses on Queer stories and themes, including the autobiographical approach of her experience as a lesbian woman which informs her work.

Eleanor (Ellie) Hawley

riverqueer leatherwork

florianlehunte — 2021-02-18 13:16:26 UTC

river is a trans/queer leatherworker based in portland. their inclusive designs exclude no bodies and they create gorgeous custom pieces to fit anyone and allow them to feel protected and euphoric. they talk a lot about the feeling of 'gendergood', which they loosely define as where their gender sits in their body when they feel euphoric and themselves. they helped me accept that my gender doesn't have to conform to the binary of man or woman, and doesn't even have to be defined in any terms but my own.
-florian le hunte

Rosa Bonheur

2021-02-18 13:41:35 UTC

French painter (1822-1899) She dressed like a man, she painted like a man, and she was one of the most successful women of her time.

Derek Jarman's The Tempest- Luke O'Reilly

xzbcifuaqe — 2021-02-18 13:46:05 UTC

Elizabeth Welsh

Luke O'Reilly- Derek Jarman

xzbcifuaqe — 2021-02-18 14:22:06 UTC

Architects can "play a more prominent role" in creating queer space says Ben Campkin

louisedalgleish — 2021-03-11 16:55:21 UTC

Cruising Pavilion aims to show how sex "is always latent or silenced" in architecture

louisedalgleish — 2021-03-11 17:01:26 UTC