Emma’s first collaboration with Indonesian performance artist, Tamarra, was in January 2019, when they travelled together to South Sulawesi to spend time with members of the Bissu community there. 

Bissu are often cited as celebrating multiple genders, and held as examples that trans people “have always been here” but spending time with Bissu shamans, being welcomed, tolerated and embraced by them was incredible. There is danger in assuming a universal trans experience - the Bissu have long celebrated multiple gender identities but their history of veneration, persecution and survival is unique. It was a life changing trip and the small group (including Emma’s child Joey) were allowed to witness far more than expected. 

Tamarra and Emma made a subsequent shared ritual performance and documentary of the trip named 

(literally - Crazy Trans Women) a term of beautiful endearment that was shouted loudly throughout our 10 day road trip!

This film is part of Queer as Folk/lore, a QAMERAD x Otherness Archive collaborative film programme at Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest 2024. You can find more info about the programme below:



Fringe! Queer Film & Arts Fest Screening:
QAMERAD X Otherness Archive: Queer as Folk/lore
September 2024


"Fag-smoking behemoths, gender-bending fairies, reincarnated deer, queens of black magic—what’s on the horizon when queer desires reject mere visibility, and instead, manifest through these elusive, mythological characters? As global queer communities face increasing pressure to conform to neoliberal identity politics, these moving images from Indonesia turn back to pre-colonial folklore, escaping current regimes of control, from hetero-patriarchal representations to hegemonic State narratives. Within these works lie promising potential for radical liberation, where queer desires can live mythically and eternally, beyond recognition from society. This programme is curated by Rizky Rahad as part of SHARED CAMERA/DERIE, a QAMERAD x Otherness Archive collaboration supported by the British Council."

Calabai Jangen

A 27-year-old Indonesian, Tim, is having a family vacation with both of his parents on a remote island far from the city, where they learn about the myth of a reincarnated deer that exists somewhere along the beach. Island locals believe that seeing the deer is a sign of meeting one’s soulmate. Tim is the only one who secretly hopes to discover the deer, hiding his desire from his very devout Christian parents.

Dear to Me

 re-imagines performance lineages surrounding the mythological figure of the Rangda: Bali’s queen of the graveyard and patroness of black magic. The story of Rangda, and her alter incarnation, the legendary witch widow Calonarang, occupies a central role within Bali’s spirit cosmology and frames a narrative around an undesirable woman as a dangerous and deviant social disrupter. 

However,alongside her feared otherness, Rangda is also conceived as a balancing force for spiritual order, and a powerful matriarchal protector. The film centres upon a matrilineal building and passing of knowledge around Rangda, channelling her presence through different bodies,performance genres and landscapes. GROH GOH proposes a matrilineal shapeshifting of Balinese art histories, as a counter to sustained colonial and touristic interpretations, and looks at how these stories migrate and reconfigure in diasporic contexts.

GROH GOH (Rehearsal for Rangda)

 continues Tontey’s ongoing research into the ancient knowledge, technologies and cosmology of the Minahasa, an Indigenous nation in the North Sulawesi province of Indonesia. In this most recent work, the artist emphasises core Minahasa cultural beliefs in the all-encompassing equilibrium between the human and non-human. Drawing on her experience of karai, a ceremony that grants Minahasan warriors an armour of invincibility, the artist seeks to establish a queering approach towards gender, youth and ecology.

Categories

Indonesia