Not Your Ex/Rotic: OK, I gave in

Thursday 20 September 2012

OK, I gave in

and got myself a tumblr:

http://notyourexrotic.tumblr.com

I'm not sure if I'll keep this yet. Long form posts are hard and I was looking for something more scrapbooky. The experiment continues!

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about

This documents the project process, ideas, and work by Creatrix Tiara for the MFA in Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Arts at the California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco.

Not Your Ex/Rotic started as a presentation at the Erotic Screen and Sound conference at Griffith University, Brisbane in early 2011. Much of the content of the presentation - and eventually this MFA - is based on the experiences and politics of Creatrix Tiara as a queer female migrant minority being involved in burlesque and other forms of sexually-charged creative expression.

The project title comes from a 2009 burlesque performance staged by Tiara (as Tiara the Merch Girl) in response to the racism and cultural appropriation experienced in the local burlesque scene: at the end of the performance Tiara performs an adaptation of Not Your Exotic by American-Palestinian poet Suheir Hammad, which ends with the line "Not your erotic, not your exotic".

Tiara aims to explore the challenges and needs of fellow queer minorities (especially South Asians like Tiara) and other multiple minorities in expressing and exploring their sexuality creatively, dealing with the multiple blows of stigma and shame from home cultures, and prejudice & bigotry from the outside. "I wish I could do what you do, but my parents would kill me" - how do we make it possible for those who tell Tiara this to do what they want to do without harm or retribution?

At the same time she wants to reexplore San Francisco, a city that captured her heart last year when she was there for an artist residency at CELLspace for 3 months, and wishes to pick up where she left off.