"Pride in Diversity" 1996
Pride has long been a part of the politics and socialisation of queerness,
so its inclusion in the title of this exhibition is unsurprising. Gay Pride,
the seasonal and salutary parades in the towns and cities of various nations,
provides a unifying and celebratory identification in contrast to an over
riding orthodoxy of homophobia and unification.
The invited artists exhibiting here are gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
They are Irish nationals, or are from the north of Ireland, or perhaps
live in another country entirely. Their nationalities are dissimilar, so
similar, so is their sexuality. Yet they are gathered here in the space
pride has provided, a hard won space constantly embattled by censure and
denial from without and reaffirmation and compromise from within. This
is the strength of this exhibition - shown in Dublin, capital of a nation
fragmented by the debris of colonisation and violence, yet committed through
the processes of infrequent pacts to determine a social and cultural harmony.
A nation steeped in the pluralisms of cross culture, cross-purposes, and
ultimately cross-reference. The diversity of this country affects all not
only through the dualities on nationality as represented by the border,
but also trough the ethical and legislative variants on issues of gay and
civil rights. Despite these inherent fissures all difference, be they creed
or constitutional, are easily surmounted by a mutual moral generated by
sexuality; for Ireland and sex has a different more cohesive history altogether.
Common moral ground between diverse religious and political factions was
easily found outside the doors of the Brooke Centre in Belfast where sanctimonious
bigots form all denominations congregated to demonstrate against a public
service giving out Family Planning advice, abortion, and safer sex information.
Similarly all elements of 'accepted' Irishness combined in their condemnation
and attempted exclusion of the Irish Gay and Lesbian lobby in New York's
St Patricks Day parade. Issues concerning identity ad queerness can therefore
become complex, for it is through such categorisations, self-delineated
or otherwise, that we are constantly re-colonised.
The multiplicity of queerness begrudges the label 'queer'. By subscribing
to an identity that is in itself an extension of homophobic discourse do
we not delimit ourselves to a strategy of perpetual opposition, perhaps
at the cost of wider cross cultural reference ? Diverse Identities\ Fragmented
Subjectives ?
The diversity of queer experience is enormous. Socially, culturally,
historically. there is little that binds us, no common denominator, save
our sexuality-multifarious as it is. To project a notion of collective
identity through sexuality alone is fractious, the narrative too extensive,
the vocabulary inadequate. By looking to the personal for political definitions
are we too quick to intertwine identity and sexuality to the possible exclusion
of wider cultural values, especially where queerness is not the crucial
factor ? For what exactly is a queer identity, what set of terms does it
signify?
By 'Coming Out' we enter squarely into homophobic discourse, for identity
is a double edged sword which delineates through oppressive judicial, medical
and ethical regimes whilst simultaneously providing a primary point of
resistance. On the axis of this polarity of oppression and resistance sits
queer identity, at a point where it seems to exist merely to resist. it
is into this site of instability that we 'come out', hoping to free ourselves
from subjection and move towards subjectivity, but those very subjectives
are circumvented byt the process of homophobia which, therefore in themselves,
become a constituent of being queer. Thus by coming out, by choosing a
queer identity, we are inadvertently appropriated by homophobic institutionalism,
this in itself is colonisation. The contest is no longer about the sexual
but about the political, there is little choice as queerness constantly
reinscribes that which it resists. Through this strategy the cultural value
of the individual is delimited as focus is placed upon the polarity of
sexual identity and its political repercussions. In light of this is pride
enough, given that the continuity and coherence it seems to provide is
in fact a displacement of a homophobic strategy of cultural invisibility,
medical miss-classification, and social erasure?
The title of this exhibition is 'Pride in Diversity', a subtle appellation
as to the specificity of our position, for whereas pride affords us visibility,
diversity questions which face we shall show. If identity, and a certain
identity at that, is in itself a political stratagem, them what do we exclude
given the diverse nature of that identity. The binaryisms of the 'identity'
strategies in which we are complicitous promote us to engage politically
with only those facets of our collectiveness which comply to an oppositionary
mechanism. But is it really that simple ? What of issues such as bi-sexuality,
or transgender, S&M, or celibacy...all of these and more are inclusive
under the rainbow banner of pride, but have they an equal political footing
in an identity whose political impetus is to usurp hetrosexual hegemony?
If our political resistance is founded solely on re-action does this not
imply that the terms of all political resistance are ultimately dictated
by homophobic constructions. It is the diversity of our queer culture wherein
lies its ultimate strength. By focussing on the fragmented qualities of
our collectivity we reinforce the cohesiveness of our identity and enrich
our political and cultural platform. This aesthetic dissection of our political
body has the chance to liberate us from a political mechanism that compels
social and cultural resistance to be permanently delimited by a hegemonic
and homophobic discourse.
Revulsion and Indifference: Sexual Allies.
Perhaps the best result an exhibition of this quality can achieve is
to remind us of the revulsion and alarm representations such as these inspire
in the hetrosexual community. It is at such heightened moments of cultural
visibility that we must ask ourselves in our pursuit of egalitarian legislation
if we really want or even need to 'normalise'. domesticise. or even pastoralise
our sexuality? Some see progression in the assimilation of queer culture
through performances such as Beth Jordache, or through the iconography
of Madonna, to name but two examples. But these colonised masquerades merely
supplant our own cultural integrity and representations. These examples
work through hetro-eroticisation alone, there is no implicit political
theme, for politicisation and queer sexuality cannot be allowed conjunction
within the hetrosexual paradigm. What exactly are the tacit threats, that
sex and political motivation evoke?
Within hetrosexuality the emphasis is on the inter-relation between
sex and gender, between sexuality and the social, that is male/female sexual
practices are infused with a hierarchical social construction. This sexual
paradigm whether represented through explicit pornography, or the pages
of a romantic novel equates sex with inequality and therefore violence,
be it physical, or institutionalised. In these terms hetrosexuality can
be seen to be "antiegalitarian, antinuturing and antiloving."
(1) the apparent political motif is that gender is a factotum used to promote
a social construction of inequality and power imbalance.
Queer sexualities expose the social limitations of sexual difference,
and disenfranchise the role of gender from it's power base. If the mandate
of hetrosexuality is desire for one's sexual opposite, of desire located
in difference, then the same sex desire can be seen as a type of sexual
indifference. (2) In essence this unequivocal ideological difference expresses
an incompatible socio-sexual power structure, whereby the sexuality inherent
to queer identities destabilises hetrosexual hegemony, based as it is on
homophobia and misogyny.
As expressed above, the strength of our political resources lies in
our diversity and quintessential to that diversity is our sexual indifference.
Through this we challenge the foundations of generalised social constructions
simply by existing. Beware liberalist attempts to promote socio-cultural
integration through redemptive efforts to 'domesticise' queer sexuality,
whether this policing be from without or within. Legistlatory equality,
even the wish for an integrated gay lifestyle, should not be at the cost
of our diverse cross-cultural heritage, socio-sexual structures, or aesthetic
integrity. Under the totem of Pride lets not assume an indigent authority
as to the political orchestration and cultural representation of whatever
we perceive Pride to be. To do this, to the detriment of the fragmented
whole, would be to disenfranchise ourselves from the political and social
potientals of a multifaceted, multidisciplined resistance uncircumvented
and uncalculated by homophobic and misogynistic discourse.
Gill McKnight
1996