The use of creativity in depicting gender

I've been making art around the theme of 'gender and identity' for a few years now.

The problem I had to try to overcome is that, just like with art, gender can also exist in its own niche.

And this is even more true for identity: it seems even harder to create categories and depict them in a way that exactly shows what is meant. Prejudices, quick insinuations, and vulnerabilities are lurking.

It becomes completely complicated when identity and gender mainly have to do with your youth, your childhood, boyhood.

Many people wonder: What are you looking for there? We're talking about the adult world, aren't we?

RECLAIMING GENDER

Sometimes gender identity is not about discovering who you are, but about reclaiming what was once taken from you,  destroyed with or without violence.

And then it turns out that you don't fit in anywhere, bcecause  others like to fit everyone into certain forms of gender and identity, preferably in a way that everyone understands exactly. 'He's gay, so he loves men.'  'She's non- binary but uses female pronouns, so...she would prefer..."

But it's not that simple. There is more than the colors of a rainbow, the allowed letters of the alphabet. Where everyone is basically categorized to fit into the box that others understand and recognize. Whoever falls outside has bad luck, has no right to protection, is excluded, and can even be prosecuted when people judge you wrong.

And here comes my story in images. My story about gender and identity doesn't fit into fixed boxes. Not in letters, not in a color. Is it a fluctuating gender? A changing identity maybe? A multiple one? No, it's a gender related to childhood, early childhood. 

My gender and identity were destroyed as a child in the fosgter care system. Not just by chance, but deliberately.

As part of the total destruction of identity, complete detachment from my family, heritage, and self.  With the knowledge of organizations. Of the government. And it was kept hidden for decades. Nobody was responsible. Justice was not necessary.

PLACED IN BOXES, FRAMED, CATEGORIZED

Since 18 years old, I realized I was diffeent, did not belong in the accepted boxes. I  was blamed for it, shamed,by govenment institutions, and even the LGBTQ community categorized me.  I was tortured and raped by policemen. And it was allowed, they say. They despised me and systematically rejected me. Everyone was allowed to be themselves, except me. A repetition of what happened in my childhood. And yes, I stood alone with my background. There were no peers, no groups to talk. no therapy, no mental health care. There was one thing left: creativity. To portray, process, explore and communicate. Would there be anyone who still understood me?  Understand that all I wanted was to be me. Even if I didn't know who I really was?

ALTERNATIVE GENDER AND IDENTITY

In 2020, after creating a lot of images around trauma and violence in youth care, I started focusing more and more on depicting experiences  in gender and identity - related to boyhood, boys and childhood in general. I left my original goal of communication behind after exhibiting  a series of pastel  portraits of young boys related to some form of queer identity. I realized that my work is a metaphor for my own life – outside mainstream society, stigmatized, and not understood at all.

DEDICATED TO DEPICT THE HIDDEN STORY- STORYTELLING

So why do you still imagine in a theme where you know that even the LGBTQ community doesn't understand you? Maybe it's a form of MOGAI, or even more, an unrecognized/accepted gender and identity, I don't care. Whoever chooses as a subject the depiction of the shapes of pebble beaches on a moon of an unknown planet orbiting the star Sirius A, also works with dedication.

WHY  CREATE ART ABOUT GENDER AND IDENTITY? 

Metaphorically, the imagination of gender and identity is liberation from a traumatic past, which the authorities hoped would remain hidden forever. And  like for many others, depicting gender and identity  is a way  to exist,  to exist somewhere in the real world,  though the subject doesn't fit into the real world. The real world would reject me, and love to see me hiding in shame;  but  exhibition of the hidden story  is just like  art should be: a reflection of a real world, even if it is not understood or harshly rejected by the majority.

#gender #identity #MOGAI #marginalizedidentity #niche #boygender