framerframed

I had been discussing increasing the impact of Moving Love film project with ImpactMakers producer and director, Vera Born, and during this discussion, I pitched creating a number of workshop sessions based on visionary world-building principles. Making use of these principles, I proposed a quartet of sessions, first focusing on what the community of LGBTQ+ asylumseekers wants and needs, then moving outwards to gathering insight into what the larger Dutch public thinks, before going on to inviting policymakers, lobbyists and lawmakers. The final session, which is yet to happen hopes to gather all these threads together and incorporate them into a reader which the producer (ImpactMakers) wants to make.

The issue of safety for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers and for vulnerable groups in the asylum seekers centra is one that’s also highlighted in the news. Sandro Kortekaas of LGBT Asylum Support has also been tireless in highlighting the urgency of attending to the safety of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers. In March, LGBT Asylum Support sent a broadly supported petition to the Minister of Asylum and Migration highlighting the egregious fact that ten percent of queer asylum seekers dies by suicide in asylum centra.

From working with the community of LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, it’s impossible to not hear stories about the acts of violence and abuse that are regularly directed towards LGBTQ+ and in particularly to those who are openly queer. These are the facts. Vulnerable groups are regularly subject to violence and threats and it can’t continue. There is a reason why LGBTQ+ asylum seekers flee and the circumstances under which they live in the asylum centra is far from the luxurious fabulation that we see fed to those of the population. Yes, the asylum center might have once been a hotel, but is it a place of luxury when two to four people are stuffed inside a room for months on end? Is it luxury when you cannot choose what you eat? Is it luxury when you know that you are not safe because you never know where the violence or abuse will come from?

Listening in on these sessions, I also realised that for a lot of Dutch people, there is a rather vague understanding of what life is like in asylum centers. A point rightly raised by one of the participants to the second sessions, was the lack of knowledge on how to support and also where to find community–particularly if one is in a town that is predominantly right wing. This second workshop which was facilitated by my dear friend, Marielle, built around the question of belonging. What do we need to feel we belong and what are the things that make us feel a sense of belonging. It’s a universal question and a great point from which to launch into imagining and thinking around how we might create this sense of belonging.

There is a lot of support for providing safe asylum centers for LGTBQ+ and vulnerable asylum seekers. From the third session, we learned that there are asylum centers for vulnerable groups in North Westphalia in Germany and that lawmakers from The Netherlands have visited these centers. I believe that there is a will to improve accommodations and to improve safety for vulnerable groups but the law is a slow moving institution and it is rather frustrating as we bear witness to the urgency of a matter that seems to just drag on without any concrete resolution.

Nevertheless, it was hopeful to hear of initiatives and to hear of what people are doing around this matter.

On the 19th of July, the final session will be held in FramerFramed. Do drop by if you have time. As one of the politicians present so rightly said: this isn’t a right wing or left wing issue, this is a human rights issue. We all have the right to live safely. We all have the right to thrive.

Maraming salamat for reading. Blessings and peace and maraming salamat for the support.

Here’s the link to the Moving Love Sessions at FramerFramed: https://framerframed.nl/en/projecten/workshop-series-moving-love-think-tank-sessions/

(Image from Moving Love project)

The Clarion West Write-a-thon started two days ago and so I thought I’d write about a performance/installation that I visited this week.

On Wednesday, I went to FramerFramed to see and imbibe of Maison the Faux’s installation/performance of The Tail. The installation will remain in FramerFramed up to the 17th of August, but if I understand correctly, the last live performance was yesterday.

Disney has taken Andersen’s tale and turned it into this romanticised fairytale, wiping it clean of all the things that have been labeled as not child-friendly and replacing the true ending with a fairytale (and more commercial) happy ending.

In Andersen’s tale, the Little Mermaid’s transformation comes at a great cost and with great suffering and (spoilers) unlike in the Disney Version, Andersen’s Little Mermaid doesn’t have a happy ending. There has been some discussion around whether the romantic version where the Little Mermaid sacrifices herself for true love by throwing herself into the waves and becoming the foam we see on the water is the ending that Andersen had in mind or whether he was made to rewrite a darker ending to one that would be more palatable as a fairytale.

I had to think about this because during the performance of The Tail, one of the personages repeats the line “do you want it darker” as a refrain to a song. If indeed you want it darker, there are darker possibilities to Andersen’s The Little Mermaid.

But The Tail is more than a retelling of Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. It goes way beyond that. It is an intensely immersive and engaging performance which made me think not just about the fairytale that inspired this installation. It made me think about the pressures that are put on queer and trans bodies to conform to an expectation. What does it mean to be in the body? What does it mean to embody and for the body to be grounded in the self? For whose sake do we transform when we choose to do so? I also like that there is no prince in this telling. It’s a great reminder that transformation isn’t to win the approval of anyone.

One of the aspects that I found effective as well as immersive was the way in which The Tail is presented. We (the audience) follow the personages from stage to stage. I thought this was a really good way of drawing in the audience and making them feel more part of rather than simply as bystanders watching. In a manner of speaking, the audience becomes a player too by becoming part of the world occupied by the three who are on the podium. One of the disadvantages of this though is how it makes it kind of challenging when you’re not as tall as most people.

At one part of the performance, the players enter an enclosed podium. I’m pretty short, so I couldn’t see a lot of what was going on when they were at the entrance. I tried raising my phone up high, but all I could get were the heads of people crowded around the door. So, I decided to distance myself a bit. (There’s something to reflect on doing that as well.) From the distance, I saw that the screens around this enclosed podium give those outside a view of what’s going on inside. The small circles around this enclosure were actually peepholes through which viewers can look and catch a glimpse of what’s going on in there. Reflecting on it, I rather liked this construction where the world outside can’t see all, as it felt to me like a silent narrative running alongside the narrative that is revealed to us.

As I sit here thinking about The Tail, I recognise how everything that was in place was done with intention. It’s this kind of intentionality that makes The Tail a joy to contemplate on.

Maison the Faux’s installation can still be viewed at FramerFramed up to the 17th of August. If you do get a chance to witness a live performance of this installation elsewhere, I highly recommend going because this review can’t capture the feeling of being there in the middle of it.

I hope you enjoyed reading this short reflection on this performance/installation. As I write this, the sun has just come out and I’m writing in its light. May your week be filled with light and joy and blessings always.