queer rising

With this visual manifesto, I’m trying to show the personal frustrations within someone when it comes to feeling accepted and loved. I’m planning on doing this by basing some of the visual frames upon personal experiences, since this manifesto is based upon a very personal story as well. 

Topic: tolerance is not acceptance. 

Video concept / meaning:

The focus point of this shoot is to show vulnerability within someones mind, how feelings of unacceptance can reach a boiling point in someones mind, and no-one will ever know — unless they feel the need to speak their minds. This also goes for tolerance and acceptance; it’s intangible, without any shape, colour, smell; anything really. This also goes for the human mind, the feelings and self-worth. With showing two side of a human being I’m trying to visualise the difference between feeling tolerated — but not fully able to express themselves (this will both be shown in the look, but also in behaviour and feelings. 

Your shallow truth

Fractures and distorts our self views

And my tether beat

Echoes in the minds

“perception impact”

“queer thriving?”

“queer rising”

MOVEMENT

With my topic, I’m trying to hold a mirror towards society in an attempt to propose a critical reflection on the way we act/behave/treat queer people. I’m planning on doing this by creating scenario’s where a queer person is doing day-to-day things, surrounded by ‘ordinary’ citizens. I’m inspired by artists like Gregory Crewdson who manages to create familiar but uncanny situations, with hidden meanings. His work is always showing a deeper story, but it might not be layered on top of the photo. 

That aspect is interesting to me, but I’m taking it a step further by showing a bit more ….

dwars door het archief: queer houses and places 

(thursday night live at het nieuwe instituut)

What I noticed listening to three queer speakers, is that there was a definite lack of diversity. Not just in their own presence, but also in the words they spoke. Coincidentally, all three speakers happened to be white, gay men. And all the people referenced in their talks, all happened to be white as well. Given, the queer history they talked about wasn’t quite as diverse as opposed to the queer community in present day, but there was a big chunk of history that seemed like it was simply skipped. 

Someone from the audience also asked about this matter; asking where all of the women were in the queer architecture. (this was the main topic) The answer was put a bit hesitant and with a slight insensitive choice of words, but came down to the following: there was just not enough research done on it, and the blame almost was put on the woman themselves. “They just fly under the rader, most of the time.” While this might be true in some cases, I can hardly imagine this goes for all of the woman that could’ve been researched. To me, the archive is already based upon a biased point of view, and therefore the research is biased, and the archivist is even more biased. The lack of interest in other letters of the LGBTQIA+ community was pretty severe and that ringed a bell. 

If I’m going to be talking about a topic — which I’m intending to call “queer thriving” (or something in that realm), it definitely can’t be biased. But I learned that researching from a single stand point is always already biased, because of the way we type and read. I’m clearly already looking for a specific type of research to back up my own ideas, but to actually read up on something and conceptualise out of that, is pretty fucking hard to do.

After the lecture, I talked to a peer I’ve met a while back when going to a (very nice) queer party. When we started our conversation after the talks, he wasn’t too shy to tell me about his critical point of view towards the speakers. I was intrigued and continued the conversation. This however, went south-ways along the way, because the conversation steered into a direction I wasn’t prepared for. We talked about how it’s pride week in Rotterdam, and I asked about their plans. Right away, I noticed that there was political tension about the matter and I knew very little about this controversy of Rotterdam Pride. When I heard about a couple of things, I stored it in the back of my mind and tried to get out of the conversation asap due to feeling super uncomfortable.

This however, put a lot of things into perspective for me. I was put on the spot to talk about something political, about something important to the local community and I wasn’t aware. Reasons aren’t important right now, but the why. Why wasn’t I educated on this topic, and how can I work on that. Very late I learned that there was a protest against the ‘inclusivity’ of Rotterdam Pride and it’s organisation team. 

Back to my uncomfortable state tho. That night, I realised that I need to be cautious with my topic. I learned that I’m writing a manifesto about “towards queer thriving”, I need to know more than I do now. There’s a lot of it, and therefore this is not just a topic for now, but something worth continuing even when the semester is over. This is not just a project, it’s also a day-to-day thing. It has been a day-to-day thing, but I became more aware of the fact how we’re still quite a journey away from total transparency, inclusivity and a community where people let others simply be. 

You will never see things how they truly are

You're stuck in your own world and of course, you're the star

How could you ever lose when you're playing me

I guess everything's easy when you're that crazy

Its 4 in the morning

I'm finding my own

You know you never said sorry

For all that you stole

Now I'm going away

And you'll never find me

5 years older today

Molding clay

Found you never knew me

Now i can find happy

Nothing to show but my name

If i could i would erase it all

You sat on your high horse and watched me fall

You got so many stories that you hide

Everything's so easy when it's all a lie

Its 4 in the morning

I'm finding my own

You know you never said sorry

And when I'm lonely and tired

I'm holding on