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This South African artist uses hers own menstrual blood to address the queerphobia and violence she has experienced with being a South African lesbian, Zanele Muholi.
Through her use of menstrual blood in her show Isilumo siyaluma (Period Pains, 2006-2011) in Cape Town, Muholi sought to tell the story of black lesbians in South Africa and represent “curative rape.” She wrote of the project in a press release for the exhibit:
Isilumo siyaluma is a Zulu expression that can be loosely translated as “period pains/ periods pain”. Additionally, there is an added meaning in the translation that there is something secretive in and about this blood/“period in time.”
At one level, my project deals with my own menstrual blood, with that secretive, feminine time of the month that has been reduced within Western patriarchal culture as dirty.
On a deeper level then, my menstrual blood is used as a vehicle and medium to begin to express and bridge the pain and loss I feel as I hear and become witness to the pain of ‘curative rapes’ that many of the girls and women in my black lesbian community bleed from their vaginas and their minds.
Between March – May 2011, three (3) young black lesbians under the age of 25 were brutally murdered in various townships [….] As we continue to live and survive in troubled times as black lesbians in South Africa and within the continent, where rampant hate crimes and brutal killings of same gender loving women is rife, this ongoing project is an activist/artist’s radical response to that violence.
you mustRead more.
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"I want to write rage but all that comes is sadness. We have been sad long enough to make this earth either weep or grow fertile. I am an anachronism, a sport, like the bee that was never meant to fly. Science said so. I am not supposed to exist. I carry death around in my body like a condemnation. But I do live. The bee flies. There must be some way to integrate death into living, neither ignoring it nor giving in to it."
Audre Lorde. 1980. The Cancer Journals. Aunt Lute Books: p. 13.
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Just a late-night doodle! Curviness and colour schemes are so much fun.
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Femme, Queer, and Visible, Oh My!
quee-rrr asked: Oh my gosh, the Madonna blasting from your page made me so happy! I wasn't expecting that. Thanks for the morning entertainment :)
LOL, no problem! :-)
Love your page. :-)
![fuckyeahhardfemme:
define “too dramatic”.
~ michael [cyanyellowmagenta]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4sdvoyEct1r8edeeo1_500.jpg)
define “too dramatic”.
~ michael [cyanyellowmagenta]
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BRANDED
My bedroom window is open with the blinds exposing the sun, my neighborhood is just waking up and so am I. I’ve got a busy day ahead of me, and by busy I mean day 2 of job interviews, time to put on a calm suit with a hint of style and a happy face. I work in the fashion industry and like a lot of people in this economy I am full time and part time jobless, and as an artist gig-less too at the moment.
Where am I going with this? Funny that you ask, I’m not exactly sure… But lately I’ve been thinking about my visibility or lack thereof as a femme queer woman in the world. I think about it especially when I’m going out into society presenting a version of myself to people that don’t know me. Can they detect a hint of gay girl scent as I speed walk by them in the concrete jungle we inhabit? Do they know that I’m purposely ignoring the bio-guy they see sitting across from me on the train giving me googly eyes? Have they noticed that I’m looking to the right with my peripheral vision and silently admiring the adorable punkish andro girl who looks like she may be on the way to the Nato Summit? Do they know I wish I had a girlfriend or boifriend? Would they guess that for about 5 years I’ve had the words “La Femme” branded on my lower left arm? Probably not. You see I’m not often if ever assumed to be gay, lesbian, or queer, by general society, which means general “straight” or assume everyone is “straight” society. Femme Invisibility is an understatement in my physical presentation to everyone but me. I say besides me, because to myself I look like I may have the propensity to swallow the stream of a moist vagina gleefully. I often look at myself in the mirror and think “I look like a dyke if ever I did see one”, then I smile. Many of my heterosexual female friends have no idea “what the big deal is” about me wanting to “look more gay”, and I’m not surprised they don’t understand, nor am I someone who’s ignorant enough to truly believe that one can “look gay” by a slew of stereotypes and assumptions, mama didn’t raise no fool and I know better. But I gotta tell ya; visibility is way more fun than invisibility and it’s a great feeling to be recognized out in society by your family, gay/queer family… but it rarely happens to me. My heterosexual female friends that don’t get “what the big deal is” will never admit this, but I know they think I shouldn’t aspire to look more like a card carrying member of the gay club because they associate “looking gay” with being aesthetically unappealing, they think and often say “but your pretty though”. Therein lies the problem: As an ubber femme identified queer woman, “being pretty” is not enough to catch the attention of a bio-girl gaze rather than the all too common bio-guy eye stalk. In our society “pretty” is not synonymous with “I prefer pussy”, often “pretty” is synonymous with every bio-man I cross on the street cat calling me, approaching me, blatantly assaulting me with their eyes, and never leaving me the fuck alone. You know who does leave me alone? The other gay and queer women I pass on the street that I really don’t want to.
That’s why a long time ago I willingly got myself branded, it was post the height me uncovering my femme identity and I wanted to shout that shit from the rooftops of Minneapolis to the corners of Chicago, and I did… only not everyone could hear me. I went to a tattoo shop where they do $20 Tuesdays, $20 gets you up to 7 letters and what do ya know, L A F E M M E is exactly 7. Call it fate or call it pride, I’m fine with either. But I’ll always call it the moment of visible truth… it was moment when I forever wanted to remind the world and myself who I was. Funny thing is most people assume it means one thing when really it means another, i.e. “La Femme, French for woman or Spanish for woman right?” Yeah, right… While I am undeniably a woman and entertained by all that is Spanish and Parisian culture, I am far more enthralled by queer femme culture… my culture. I knew the “pretty” cursive script of “La Femme” in black ink imprinted on my arm would always be a triple edged sword of interpretation. And the more years I continue to wear it the more interesting and complex it becomes for me to explain it to those seeking its meaning. This is also part of why I placed the words like I did, just in case I opted to chicken out of explaining its genuine meaning FOR ME and play the simple (safe) explanation instead. I don’t always go into a pre set pride speech on what provoked me to get it, sometimes I’m guilty of not correcting their assumptions of what it means… those are the times I feel like I’ve done myself, and my queerness a disservice. I guess acknowledging this is a step in the right direction.
The beauty of my arm being branded in a permanent ink meets skin affair is that I can look down at it and remind myself on any given day at any given moment who I am in spite of society saying otherwise… and it’s not because I forgot, it’s because most of society will never remember.
