Portrait of @muteki_no_rena & @kingleo.fr during the “Candy World Ball” hosted by @kiddysmile in Paris.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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I’m currently documenting the ballroom scène in the Netherlands and abroad as a visual research for my current project with cultural anthropologist Wigbertson Julian Isenia (University of Amsterdam) on gender and sexuality. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀
unpublished ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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My current project — working title — ‘Black Queer Diaspora in the Netherlands’ is an ode to my late brother and all people from Afro-Caribbean descent, that still are not free to live and express their sexuality to their fullest. To this day homosexuality is strongly stigmatized and condemned within the Caribbean community. Also, black people from the former colonies and the Caribbean islands in the Netherlands are increasingly racialised and objectified. This project seeks to break out of this dichotomy by portraying these subjects in unadorned, raw yet graceful portraits.
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The project records my attempt to build a living archive of feelings, gender expressions and LGBTQ identities of the Black Caribbean diaspora in the Netherlands as a testimony of the vitality and longevity of the Black LGBTQ community in The Netherlands and the Caribbean.
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Black Queer Diaspora in the Netherlands closely collaborates with the research project Cultural Practices of Citizenship: Gender and Sexual Citizenship in Curaçao and Bonaire by the University of Amsterdam and the University of Curaçao conducted by cultural anthropologist Wigbertson Julian Isenia (University of Amsterdam) on gender and sexuality.
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More to follow soon.
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