News
Page 8
Street Roots • March 11-17, 2016
Street Roots • March 11-17, 2016
News
POETRY
POLITICS
"This association with fashion as ¿frivolous/
and aesthetics as 'selfish/ distracts ns from
having serious conversations about the long
legacy perhaps even tradition — of
feminine people using our aesthetics and
our fashion as part of political work. We,
like so many (trans} femmes before us, use
aesthetics as a way to survive in a world
that continually tells us that our bodies and
experiences are insignificant."
including #NotOneMore, Black Lives Matter,
Idle No More, Palestinian solidarity
movements, anti-war movements, and many
other racial and economic justice movements
led for and by queer and trans people of color.
The resounding silence from white LGBT
communities on drone strikes, on immigrant
detention and deportation, on police violence,
etc., is very telling. This isn’t about creating
something “new”; it’s about recognizing it’s
already there.
Trans activists DarkMatter use performance art
to express their views about gender, race, sexuality
BY ANN-DERRICK GAILLOT
STAFF WRITER
Ann-Derrick Gaillot: Why poetry? What
activist potential does poetry, as an art form,
hold in particular?
rans performance art duo DarkMatter
had quite the 2015. Composed of
former Stanford schoolmates Alok Vaid-
DarkMatter: We didn’t choose poetry;
Menon and Janani Balasubramanian, the poetry chose us. We never took any classes or
group’s unique brand of sometimes cheeky
workshops. We just started writing down how
but always profound poetry readings exploring we felt, and people called it “poetry,” and we
the intersections of race, class, gender
were like “Yeah, I guess!” and then the rest
identity and sexuality have found a foothold
was history. This thing we call poetry has
with audiences around the world.
proven to be a useful way to engage in politics
From being featured in
because it’s one of the
the pages of The New
few spaces left in our
Yorker and Elle India to
culture where people are
consistently selling out
invited to be honest
shows of their latest spoken
DarkMatter is performing a soki-
about their feelings,
word performance,
out show at Lewis & Clark =’
their pain, their
“#ItGetsBitter,” DarkMatter
College on March 14 to benefit
loneliness. And there is
has entered 2016 as some
no meaningful activism
the Asian Pacific American
of America’s most visible
without emotions.
Network of Oregon,
and celebrated trans artists
They will perform again at at 6:30
and activists of color.
A.G.: How much do
pm. March 16 at Reed Colte^ /
The South Asian pair’s
you think about your
emergence into the
The event will be free and open to
audience when you are
spotlight coincided with
Be public.
writing and planning
increased visibility of
your performances?
transgender celebrities and
activists such as Laverne
D.M.: At some level
Cox, Janet Mock and Caitlyn Jenner, as well as now we think it’s impossible to not think
increased national attention to violence
about our audience, even if it’s
committed against transgender and gender
subconsciously. But we try our best to make
nonconforming individuals. However, as
our writing an imprint of exactly what we are
DarkMatter’s highly active Twitter and
feeling in the moment. When curating a
Facebook pages announce, increased visibility
performance, we think about our audience a
has not translated into increased safety,
lot more. The thing about being a
especially for trans women of color. According performance artist is that you can tell
to a 2015 report by Human Rights Campaign,
immediately if your audience is vibing with
more transgender people were reported
your work or not - and you have to adjust
murdered that year than any other year on
accordingly and immediately. We choose
record.
pieces that help make the emotional and
This month, DarkMatter will bring
political arcs we want to convey — pieces that
“#ItGetsBitter” to Portland audiences for the
we know will best resonate with our
first time. Street Roots corresponded with the audience.
duo via email about their show, the gay rights
movement and activism through art.
A.G.: You have performed in many different
X
#ITGETSBITTER
Page 9
A.G.: DarkMatter has gained a lot of
popularity in the past year. How do you
understand this success, both in regard to you as
artist-activists and in regard to American media
and pop culture?
PHOTO COURTESY OF DARKMATTER
DarkMatter’s Alok Vaid-Menon and Janani Balasubramanian are among America’s most visible and celebrated trans artists and activists of color.
places, but some of these places, such as colleges
and universities, are traditionally very white,
privileged spaces. How do you approach
performing your work to mostly white, privileged
audiences versus audiences of queer and trans
people of color?
D.M.: There are totally different vibes
when performing for largely white, privileged
audiences and QTPOC (queer, trans people of
color) audiences. White people tend to get
really uptight and uncomfortable — it always
feels like we have to really push through
something to make our point. Whereas in
QTPOC audiences most people are like, “Yeah
totally.” It kind of feels like two different
agendas: In one space we’re really trying to
advance political critique, whereas in the
other we’re just trying to validate the hell out
of people and affirm their struggle.
A.G.: How does social media factor into your
work?
D.M.: Social media is an extension of our
work. Since we first started, we knew that as
political trans and gender-nonconforming
artists of color we would be barred from a lot
of formal art institutions and that we had to
build a following online to translate into
people actually coming to our shows. Part of
our day-to-day “work” has always been: How
do we reach the people who need to hear
what we have to say qn social media?
Instagram is for having fun and sharing style
and fashion. Facebook is for learning in public
— sharing the articles and ideas that inspire
us as organizers and artists. We don’t just
wake up and have the? ideas and convictions
that we have; it’s beep a process of learning
from so many different writers, theorists,
journalists and artists, and we’re learning so
much every day. We think it’s important to
share that with people.
A.G.: Besides being\accomplished writers and
performers, you both ate also style icons. Why are
fashion and aesthetics so essential to your art
activism?
D.M.: Perhaps we can rephrase the
question as, “How did aesthetics become
insignificant in activism,” to which we would
respond, “misogyny.” This association with
fashion as “frivolous;’! and aesthetics as
“selfish,” distracts us|from having serious
conversations about tpe long legacy - perhaps
even tradition - of feihinine people using our
aesthetics and our fashion as part of political
work. We, like so many (trans) femmes before
us, use aesthetics as a way to survive in a
world that continually tells us that our bodies
and experiences are insignificant. We use
aesthetics to produce new images - create
representations of gender and race that
people didn’t think were people and disrupt
the status quo. We strongly believe that we
shouldn’t have to compromise aesthetics to be
taken seriously precisely because aesthetics
are a serious endeavor!
A.G.: The title of your show is “#ItGetsBitter,”
« riff off of Dan Savage’s nonprofit project “It
Gets Better. ” Tell us about “#ItGetsBitter, ” the
title and the show itself.
D.M.: We’re in this weird, post-gay-marriage
apocalyptic moment right now where queer
people are not allowed to be upset, hurt or
angry anymore. We’re just supposed to be
proud, which, let’s be clear, is just a form of
silencing and erasure. With our title we are
gesturing to how so many of us are angry
about how things went down (you know the
gay movement marrying the police), and are
angry about the injustices that we still face
and are not even allowed to talk about
anymore.
A.G.: In what ways has the U.S.’s gay rights
movement failed queer and trans people of color?
D.M.: We could go on about this for hours,
but I guess we will offer that we don’t find
the framework of the gay movement’s
“failure” to be useful. To say that the gay
movement “failed” would assume that it
actually was supposed to be about racial
justice and just wasn’t. Actually, the gay
movement succeeded because it was a
movement specifically engineered for upper-
class white cisgender people. It was never
actually about us. The discrepancy between
representation (white) and reality (black and
brown), between policy and people, between
marriage and murder - these are all
calculated strategies, not accidents! Queer
and trans people of color are still under
attack precisely because white cisgender
people are “free” to marry. These are not
accidents. They are calculated results of
white supremacy and transmisogyny. That’s
something a lot of our white cis peers don’t
want to understand — that they themselves
are responsible for discrepancies in justice.
A.G.: How can the gay^rights movement in
this country change for the better?
D.M.: The gay movement can’t ever be
changed or fixed because fundamentally
organizing around sexuality is not and will
never be a liberator politic. There are many
queer movements already in this land,
D.M.: We are still trying to figure that out.
Check back in a couple of years and perhaps
we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on.
A.G.: I know that you regularly fundraise for
the Audre Lorde Project in New York City, and
your upcoming show at Lewis & Clark College
will be a fundraiser for the Asian Pacific
American Network of Oregon. Can you speak a
bit on how fundraising factors into your work
and why you regularly use your shows as
fundraisers?
D.M.: We think fundraising is super
important because a) social movements need
resources to thrive, b) many of the social
movements we align ourselves with are
underresourced/ignored by dominant funding
schemes, and c) cultural work is often a great
platform to reach people emotionally and then
offer them something tangible to contribute
to however they are able.
A.G.: Who are some other trans and queer
artists/activists of color you’re excited about right
now?
D.M.: There are so many! KOKUMO is one
of the most important artists of our time —
hands down — and has created the space for
so many of us. Mia Mingus, Mitchyll Mora,
Lady Dane Figuera, Una Osato, Jennicet
Gutierrez, L’lerret Ailith, Shagasyia Diamond
are some!