The Queen is dead (3 works)

Full description

Background
LGBTI cultural studies (broad), qualitative studies of generational change. AIDS, its backlash and the rapid progress toward legitimacy transformed the gay experience. For some the pace of change was disorienting causing a sense of exclusion. These individuals constitute a subjugated perspective that is obscured by the glare of a legitimate new mainstream. These three works aim to represent sensations of redundancy some older LGBTI people feel using ironic theatrical strategies of camp. They respond to the question: In what unanticipated ways has legitimacy reshaped the LGBTI experience? Key thinkers in this field are Dennis Altman, Michael Warner, John D'Emilio.
Contribution
These photographs destabilise comforting perceptions of an unproblematic transition of LGBTI individuals from outlaw to legitimacy. They seek to resist the naturalisation of new normativities emerging out of the values of a new LGBTI middle class.
Significance
The research significance lies in the representation of subjugated perspectives that are usually suppressed by rhetorics of activism that promote a new legitimationist LGBTI mainstream. The research provides an alternative perspective to regulatory energies that constitute identity formations in alignment with the market and the cultural logic of neoliberalism. The exhibition being part of the Midsumma LGBTI festival allowed me to connect with a targeted audience. Curated by Angela Bailey, the president of the Australian Gay and Lesbian Archive, the exhibition brought alternate perspectives to the community. Artists were Lin Tobias, Anj Hans, UB Topia and Peter Waples Crowe.