Talking about black lesbians in the Brooklyn Museum..

Guarding the exhibits

"So many of them are pretty girls, I wonder if they were forced into this lifestyle"... the woman guarding the exhibits in the gallery said. I had asked her what she thought of the exhibition .
She had laughed and put one hand on her face - the way that many people do when they hear an unexpected question.

We were facing the slide show of powerful images which was part of Zaneili Muholi's :‘Isibonelo/Evidence'. 

She points to the images - "that's the artist".

The woman said that she had seen one of the films as part of the exhibition and had heard one of the women say that she was encouraged to be a lesbian. I told her that people could be born that way. She said "well, it doesnt matter.. but when I read on the wall, the things which were done to them, that is not good, these things are bad".

She was talking about the testimonies on the wall from South African citizens who had experienced the violence. The rape from family members, community members and other citizens.

Inscriptions on the wall

 The woman and I talk about the Caribbean . I tell her I from Guyana and she laughed and said "I take you for a Trini'.
She asked  me "yall have dem dere?"
We talk about Grenada. I say that LGBT are everywhere.  I ask her if she had heard about Audre Lourde who had Grenadian origins.   She did not know of her.

The woman smiled when I asked her if she had heard about 'zami'.


 One of the stories documented in Faces + Phases tells of a woman feeling safer in Botswana where 'homosexuality is illegal' than in South Africa where homosexuality and same sex marriage are legal and where curative rape is used by the righteous on women who do not conform to heterosexual norms

 The exhibition is not only about mourning, but about celebration . One of the exhibits is the video of Ayanda & Nhlanhla Moremi's wedding. Flowers adorn a coffin , much like how flowers adorn weddings and the artist has a self portrait lying in the coffin. This is to remind viewers about how celebrations of weddings and funerals of those killed in the homophobic violence are part of the LGBTI life in South Africa

 The coffin reminds me though of the death sentence for many women who enter into relationships and marriage.. that wreaths and bouquets are flowers arranged differently.

Couple watching film

I see a man and woman cuddling up watching the film and I think of the hugging which could move so easily to strangling.

 
The  woman and I braced against the wall. I asked her how she manages, standing so long and she said that yes, it was hard in the beginning, but she uses clove oil and epsom salts to soak her feet. Another woman I know uses nutmeg mixed with castor oil.