On the 15th of August I hosted a queer and trans visibility workshop at Ocean Studios, Plymouth. I invited young members of the LGBTQI+ community to come and have a conversation about what visibility means to them, whilst creating collages. I felt that that as collaging is a big part of my work, that asking them to make their own collages whilst we talk would be a good way to break some of the tension and make everyone more comfortable with discussing something that could be potentially delicate for them.
I asked the writer, comedian, trans activist (and lawyer powerhouse), Shon Faye to join as a guest for the afternoon. I have a keen interest in her views and knowledge on current affairs and LGBTQI+ issues. I was aware that a lot of the conversations that she is involved with often happen very centrally in London, or online, and I wanted to create a space in the southwest for people of my community to have access to these conversation face to face. Longterm I would like to continue creating these opportunities as I think they are a vital space for people to come together and gain insight from each others experience and knowledge. I would like to see the form of this conversation evolve, so that it seeps into a more ongoing dialogue that isn’t picked up and then put down like just another policy. I say this because in a political engagement sense, trans rights are very present currently due to the proposed reforms in the gender recognition act, meaning that to some extent it’s a hot topic in many areas of the media; and perhaps if the conversation were continued on a more routine basis it would highlight difference less. It might also be the case that if the conversation is seen less as coming from a centralised left-wing elite, and broadened out, then it might ease resistance that exists. Not that I would be so jejune to suggest that just by talking about things, you can rid the world of prejudice, but rather that there is a case for reshaping how conversations happen in the endeavour of invoking change.
I was initially unsure about workshops as a format. I didn’t really know what a workshop was, just that every next person around me seemed to be facilitating them, but they felt a little vague. I knew that they could have different formats, and that in an academic context they meant something different to within an arts context. So I wanted to play with this, as a large part of my work is interested in picking apart widely accepted modes of pedagogy, it seemed pertinent to test this format. For this, and many other reasons, I would say the session was really successful. I felt that the people in attendance really wanted to interact with the issues I was proposing and that they had a lot of interesting thoughts on the matter of visibility that may not have found the same expression in any other platform. Asking the participants to create collages, after showing them examples of my own work, was primarily a device for allowing space in the room for people to be engaged in something else whilst talking about topics that can be quite complex. Therefore allowing space for people not to be daunted by engaging in the wider conversation. There was also the hope that people would form a visual language, potentially informed by the political nature of the discussion, creating a cross section that is informed both by visual choices as well as external topics. Looking back at the collages made I feel that there is a charge, that is completely individual to each participant, within the collages that were created that relates to their own expression as well as in response to what was being discussed.
Going into the conversation I felt as though I had an idea of what visibility meant to me, and also that I could make a reasonably accurate guess as to what it would mean to other people within the LGBTQI+ community. My estimates in this respect were largely updended during the course of the afternoon. In the media, that I had access to, visibility seemed like one of the most crucial aspects of queer and trans life that still needed tackling. To some extent, it is still a really critical idea, that presents some interesting conversation that are important to have; around race and class in relation to LGBTQI+ experience. However, on the whole there was a very strong sense that visibility is a potentially limiting type of politics, and that it actually may be making stereotypes as well as the type of abuse people are left open to worse.
Early on in the conversation it became clear that there was distinction that needed to be made about what ‘visibility’ actually meant. There seemed to be a general consensus that there were two definitions - in relation to LGBTQI+ issues. The first, being physically visibly - presenting yourself to the world in a very visible way; the second, a more general sense of a community being visible. The former was beset with a lot of issues that needed some careful consideration, the latter was something that is broadly deemed as being very important but not necessarily easy to achieve without creating broad generalisations.
There will be more that I have to digest from the conversation, and the workshop on the whole, which I will continue to feed into the D A D D Y G O G U E blog. I realise this more as I go over the recordings and reflect on what was spoken about and made, but I wanted to offer an insight into what had come out of the day, as it is inseparable from the entire project and is shaping further conversations. The main aim was to invite different voices to have a platform for their views based on their experiences, and it has proven to be a productive situation to encourage this. Going forward, it is clear to me that it is crucial that people are given this space so that we can collectively reflect on the direction that we take together. So that we can make sure that the steps we take are in the interest of vulnerable and marginalised people, in a way that goes beyond institutionalised safe spaces and becomes a more societal forum of discussion.
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