Vision Statement

As submitted to CIIS for my MFA application.

As mentioned in my Autobiographical Statement, I wish to explore the precarious balance between taboos from inherited cultures, wider societal racism, and personal sexual autonomy and expression, especially as it relates to queer South Asians and other People of Colour / Culturally and Linguistically Diverse people. I wish to explore this through research and direct consultation, the creation and evaluation of my creative practice both from self and from others and the facilitation of workshop and performance opportunities.

Research and Direct Consultation: I am in the early stages of researching the issues of racism and taboo insex-positive and sex-based performance & creative art. In early 2011 I presented Not Your Ex/Rotic: Diversity and Norms in Sex-Positive Performance at the Erotic Screen and Sound conference in Brisbane. This presentation reflects the core of my topic of interest, and it plus the feedback received and interaction with other academics, performers, and sex workers presenting on various aspects of sexuality, society, and the media, informs a lot of my approach towards the topic.

There is not a lot of academic research currently available about queer South Asians and sexuality, though there is a growing number of creative responses and discussion by this community - for example, Yoni Ki Baat, a Bay Area-based theater production inspired by the Vagina Monologues with stories written by and about South Asian women’s experiences with sexuality and gender – as well as support and advocacy groups for queer South Asians (such as Trikone, with hubs in San Francisco and Sydney) and queer Muslims. Connecting with them is necessary to understand the needs and issues related to sexual self-expression and cultural boundaries. I understand that there are possible differences in experiences and opinion depending on nationality, class, and other intersectional issues; I will keep these in mind throughout my research.

I am especially interested in researching the original South Asian philosophies and social norms around sexuality - especially Tantra and the Kama Sutra which have been heavily appropriated by Westerners looking for the “exotic”. How did the Subcontinent go from having nude bodies carved onto temple rock to chaste kisses being banned on screen? How were the multiple cultures in my ancestry and history affected by Islam and Christianity, colonialism and independence, migration and tourism? It is quite difficult to find resources that are not filtered through Western eyes or current conservative taboo - addressing those filters as well as the resources themselves is important to explore and unpack. The Women’s Spirituality program at CIIS may be able to connect me with resources and research leads, and it would be great to reconnect with Arisika Razak, whom I met at the Performing the World conference in New York in 2010 that introduced me to CIIS.

Personal Practice: I would like to continue the work I had started in San Francisco on my CELLspace residency, creating performance pieces that communicate and express my thoughts and politics on sexuality, race, and gender. As my research deepens, so will the heart and strength of my performance work. I would like to take the opportunity to work on specific performance and creative skills, such as choreography, dramaturgy, scriptwriting, and the cross-disciplinary use of other artforms such as music and visual art.

I’m especially interested in investigating and analysing the responses to my body as a work of erotic, sexual art and expression - particularly when politicised by race, shape, and size. While in San Francisco I worked with queer photographic artist Shilo McCabe on a series of photos satirising pin-up while presenting highly political messages. Recently I looked through the archives of A Year Without Clothes, a project by LA-based duo Sylva and Lucky where they present a diptych of photographs, one with clothes and one without. While the duo have obvious talent, especially in costuming and use of colour, I was quite dismayed at the casual cultural appropriation with misleading attribution (for instance, Day #8 involved Sylva in a Native American headdress reserved for male elders, yet the ‘style’ was attributed to Cher). I thought about doing a counterpart project of a regularly-updated set of nude photos of myself, without the cultural appropriation and with a more socio-political focus - partly inevitable, as my body is heavily politicised as it is, but partly deliberate, evoking the political pin-ups McCabe and I worked on earlier.

This would be a highly risky endeavour for me, especially if it is attached to legal names rather than my various pseudonyms for erotic work - I may face the same national and international backlash as Magda Alia al-Mahdy, whose nude photo in protest of patriarchy and subjugation against women in Egypt attracted more furore and backlash from Egyptians and various Muslims worldwide (as Middle-Eastern socio-cultural web journal Jadaliyya notes, more so than reports of Egyptian armed forces assaulting women under the guise of a “virginity test”), or Pakistani-Norwegian pop singer Deeyah, who was forced into silence after uproar over her music openly challenging patriarchy enacted in the name of Islam, to the point of accusations that she was secretly Hindu and lying about her Muslim heritage. At the very least I may face familial backlash similar to when my past pin-up photos were discovered (as stated in my Autobiographical Statement). However, it is exactly this risk that I seek to explore, unpack, and eventually dismantle, through my MFA and my life’s work.

Facilitation: Dismantling the risk of shame, exposure, and harm for sexual self-expression also involves supporting other people who wish to take on this risk. I am often contacted for individualised advice on getting involved with burlesque or other erotic arts, especially as a minority, and am currently experimenting with workshops and other educational material that can be distributed to a wider audience. I would like to be able to reconnect with Vixen Noir and learn the skills involved in facilitating a workshop like “Unleash Your Erotic Power” - skills that I can then adapt and adjust to meet the needs of queer South Asians & other QPOC.

I would also like to put on productions and presentations that highlight, showcase, and center the work of queer South Asians and other People of Colour. The Bay Area already has a great history of QPOC art, including in burlesque and erotic art - from the travelling QPOC burlesque show Mangoes with Chilli, to queer porn webseries The Crash Pad, recognised as one of the best in its genre, which makes a point of featuring a diverse range of ethnicities, sexualities, genders, and body types. The MFA will provide an opportunity to collaborate and coproduce such presentations, with a view to taking these production formats back to Australia or even elsewhere (such as the Subcontinent or South-East Asia) where such art is uncommon, while also taking into account methods of subversion and protection from jeopardy.

The Internet is a key source of information, referrals, and support for me. I am already an avid Web media producer and communicator, and plan to document my progress online (which would work especially well if I take on the regular-nude-photo project). Through this documentation I hope to engage and connect with other artists, producers, academics, and audience members to talk about creativity, sexuality, and cultural taboos, while also highlighting other productions, research, and artists that also work with such issues.

In five years I want to see the lineup of burlesque festivals have more than just token faces from people outside the Anglo-Saxon colonial diaspora. I want to see authentic Tantric practice by and for South Asians be as popular, or even more so, than the Western bastardisations thereof. I want to create and support families full of love and care for your creative sexuality when your family of birth decries your adventures. I want people to not see sex, gender, and the erotic as just concerns for “White Western people”. I want to support others to be empowered and at home in their bodies, exploring their senses and pleasure as they will, protected from harm - or swiftly and strongly supported if harm does befall them. I want diverse views of sexuality to be the norm. I want to be the person I most long to see on stage: erotic, charming, graceful, mesmerising, confident, fully within their body and their senses, performing from the heart, their bodies safe haven and sacred temple.

I want to hear “You are my role model: I wish I could do what you do...and I’m going to give it a try.”
And I will give them that opportunity to try.
First, though, I ask for that opportunity from you.