Elizabeth Duval: “Ser trans no significa tanto en mi vida”

+ info: El País (Álex Vicente)

La joven escritora publica ‘Reina’, una primera novela en clave autobiográfica donde relata su experiencia como estudiante de Filosofía y Letras en la Sorbonne de París, su ciudad desde hace dos años.

En su país, Elizabeth Duval (Alcalá de Henares, 2000) es una estrella mediática. En París, en cambio, es solo una estudiante universitaria más. La joven escritora cursa el doble grado de Filosofía y Letras Modernas en la Sorbonne, donde se funde en una masa de alumnos que cargan con tote bags y engullen paninis veganos bajo el tímido sol que entra en el patio. “París es una manera de alejarme de esa existencia como figura pública”, escribe en Reina (Caballo de Troya), su primera novela autobiográfica, a falta de un nombre mejor. El libro es, a la vez, una autoficción y una crítica a su impúdico dispositivo. “Es un libro escrito a regañadientes, que no quiere ser leído. Lo que me interesaba era reflexionar sobre la difícil posición en la que te sitúa firmar un libro así, contar un relato con la parte morbosa que implica toda literatura del yo”, responde la autora. En el libro, que recoge sus primeros meses como estudiante en París, Duval relata cómo se pincha triptorelina para bloquear la producción de testosterona en su cuerpo. Pero también, o sobre todo, narra su peculiar historia sentimental con Aurore, las tesis sobre las relaciones subterráneas de su íntimo amigo Théo y su breve rollo con Rebecca, una joven que logró fundamentar buena parte de su memoria de posgrado en que Sylvia Plath era lesbiana y estaba carcomida por la heterosexualidad (el jurado le dio la razón).

‘A queer person can be anybody’: the African photographers exploring identity

+ infor: The Guardian

In his new book, Africa State of Mind, Ekow Eshun celebrates contemporary African photography. Here he showcases the work of artists looking at the self and sexuality, from Zanele Muholi to Eric Gyamfi.

In August 2009, an exhibition titled «Innovative Women» opened in Johannesburg, aiming to showcase the work of the city’s young black female artists. The launch was attended by Lulu Xingwana, minister for arts and culture at the time, who had been invited to officially open the show. But instead of giving a speech, Xingwana stormed out of the gallery after seeing images by the photographer Zanele Muholi that depicted naked women in close embrace. Muholi’s work, said the minister, was immoral, offensive and ran contrary to “social cohesion and nation-building”.

South Africa has one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, with discrimination on the basis of sexuality barred by law. Yet censorious attitudes such as Xingwana’s towards homosexuality are widespread. Almost three-quarters of the population believe same-sex sexual activity is morally wrong, according to a 2016 survey. Similarly intolerant views are commonplace across Africa. Homosexuality is outlawed in 32 of the continent’s 54 nations.

Against that backdrop the work of a photographer such as Muholi takes on a dual role, both representing individual artistic expression and operating as a form of political activism; a means to positively assert LGBTQ+ identity in straitened circumstances.

Hal Fischer: Gay Semiotics

+ info: Hal Fisher

Since 1977—when the first exhibition of the this series took place in San Francisco—Gay Semiotics series has been recognized as a unique and pioneering analysis of a gay historical vernacular and as an irreverent appropriation of structuralist theory. Taken directly from Fischer’s personal experiences living in the vibrant gay communities of San Francisco’s Castro and Haight-Ashbury districts, Fischer’s photo-text deconstructions are laced with humor and a formal photographic esthetic indebted as much to textbook and advertising images as it is to the photographs of August Sander.

New Book: Hal Fischer: The Gay Seventies. Edited by Griff Williams, Troy Peters. Essay by Hal Fischer.