AN ANTHOLOGY of QUEER ART/We Are Flowers
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14: AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER ART/We are Flowers 1 14: AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER ART/We are Flowers 14: AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER ART NO. 1 WE ARE FLOWERS 2 14: AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER ART/We are Flowers A publication of 14: AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER ART in partnership with Brittle Paper. The authors have asserted their moral rights under the Copyright, Design and Patent Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work. Individual Contributions Copyright © 2017 by The Authors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the copyright owners. Cover concept and design: Osinachi Cover typeset: Osinachi Second Cover concept and design: Seyi Second Cover typeset: Seyi 3 14: AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER ART/We are Flowers Let the Flowers Bloom! 14: An anthology of Queer Arts: We are Flowers is a rich mix of lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender narratives, artworks and sketches. As titles of the different entries reveal, these works are indeed flowers sprouting in a desert of hate and homophobia, but they are watered by the rains of hope and dogged determination. The audacity of this collection is carried through the chronicles featured. Its risqué slant gives it an alluring edge that delivers defiant blows. These strikes more or less tell homophobia to shove it down its constricted throat. This trend is seen in the blatant masculine objectification of Nzeogwu’s “Black Testosterone,” for instance, where he celebrates his fantasies about the grandeur of black male bodies, albeit sexually charged; the conveyance is raw and sassy. Additionally, the assorted artistic mediums utilized in this book are yet another angle that makes it a distinctive anthology, from poetry to collages, to sketches, stories and reportage techniques. It also does not fail to capture the tension with which the Nigerian LGBT community navigates its rather hostile terrain. And the extremities they are dealt is reflected in Ice’s story “Fizzled.” Hence, when lesbians, for example, cautiously gauge territories of love and romance, they usually have to contend with the possibility of being attacked, outright rejection, or most likely share a woman with a man. When Ice’s “Fizzled” is compared to Salimah Valiani’s “The Girl Next Door,” a contrast is seen in Salimah’s tale, especially in the setting where an open transaction of love and desire is freely conducted. Though this creates a forlorn feeling, it is buoyant. Hence, We are Flowers continues in the tradition of Invisible from Kenya, Blessed Body from Nigeria and Queer Africa, new and collection of fiction published in South Africa, among others, as textual tools for dismantling homophobia. The task of the anthology moves beyond enlightenment and entertainment. It delves into the topography of advocacy and activism because as Human Rights Watch maintains in its report for the World Economic Forum, “Anything that helps to increase the visibility of LGBT people, to move beyond past stereotypes and ignorance, to show that gays occupy the same range of positions in life and society as everyone else,” is a highly welcomed development. So let these flowers sprout across plains of revulsion, and bring forth the bloom that is represented in the diversity of human sexuality. We are Flowers is another gemstone that has sprouted through the slabs of ignorance and through the concrete grit of hate. It is a must read: an exquisite compilation. —Unoma Azuah. In much of Africa, to be gay is an expensive and unsustainable existence, one spent furtively trying to live in spaces that are designed to humiliate, maim and in some instances kill the innocent. There are few safe physical spaces for those whose crime is to live the life they were gifted with but the brave soldier on, creating safe havens away from a judgmental hateful world. Art for the vulnerable is a way of creating physical and psychological space that is comforting and nurturing. We are Flowers is not just an anthology of queer art; it is a collection of breath-taking beautiful works of art, every piece stuns with its in-your-face courage and beauty. And sadness. Many of the names are pseudonyms of real human beings who wisely must remain anonymous because to be out could be a death sentence. But no, this is not a time to be sad. Enjoy this gorgeous body of work and marvel at the gift and resilience of beautiful people who refuse to be ugly in an ugly world. Fond Memories of this collection will comfort me for as long as I live. —Ikhide R. Ikheloa 4 14: AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER ART/We are Flowers For the victims of the February 2014 Gishiri (Abuja) homophobic attacks. And for all those who have suffered homophobic violence. 5 14: AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER ART/We are Flowers The 14 Team Editor Rapum Kambili Fiction/Nonfiction Editors Absalom Nzeogwu Poetry Editor Ifedimma Osakwe Art Editor Osinachi Publicity/Social Media 14 Manager Pink Panther Contact: Gmail: rainbowanniversarynigeria @gmail.com Twitter: @naijaqueerart 6 14: AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER ART/We are Flowers Contents painting nonfiction 8 4 Lez Love note After the Law Was 8 Anonymous 3 Passed We are Flowers 5 IRISY N’C PINK PANTHER 0 THE EDITOR The sensation of erotic love The world is full of How beautifully delicate: can bypass the build-up of bruised, red flowers that we familiarity. unknowns, most of them are. dangerous and potentially hurtful. 8 poetry Writing on the introduction 9 3 Wall/Rolling in the 8 poetry African Queers Deep You Think You are 0 Have Agency KELECHI EZEIGWE Fucked/Coming BINYAVANGA WAINAINA Nightingales gather in the 5 Out/How to Survive grey atmosphere. the Fire ROMEO ORIOGUN nonfiction poetry The woman on the bar stool 3 4 knows your body/is a journey Black Testosterone Ero-manga into songs 1 (or: What to do with 4 AYAOBÀ TÀ LÁ ́ Famous African Male Sealing calcified want and Bodies) night dreaming/of you NZEOGWU 3 memoir It began where it simply has The Thing You Do to begin: Idris Elba. 6 for Love poetry DEjI PAYNE 6 The thing you do for love is How Can I Forget to memoir 4 be Nigerian Around survive. 7 You? Fizzled NNANNA IKPO 1 ICE You laugh like a baby giggling, fiction Her words were small, rolling licking nzu 8 balls she threw under my Opprobrium feet. 6 OSINACHI visual art Eyes were glued on him with 8 hate and judgment. Kito/Ada-Obi/May 4 memoir 4 the Rainbow be with The Girl Next Door You 2 SALIMAH VALIANI OSINACHI 2 essay Was she the girl next door? It results in long-term Time to Marry. Or No and yes. Yes, if doors were depression Not degrees and time was 7 CHIKE FRANKIE distance. EDOZIEN Was this clandestine living the best they could hope for? 7 14: AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER ART/We are Flowers photography poetry 7 poetry 03 23 A Story to Live For Placards Bodies: how to keep 1 NNANNA IKPO 1 CHISOM OKAFOR a distant 7 My story isn’t over. Dreams are variegated relationship/ghosts things/like arithmetic /suicide note CHIBỤÌHÉ OBI nonfiction I'll begin by teaching my body 05 painting the language of grief Gay Wars: Battle of 25 1 the Bitches (or, The Istanbul Pride 2017 Tops and Bottoms of Being 1 jAY RECHSTEINER Out in Nigeria) It does not look like the 2 photography RAPUM KAMBILI authorities will allow that He is a bitch, this classmate of march soon. Here I Am/Not Yet mine. Perhaps the bitch of 8 Buried bitches. His role model? Lady OJO OGBOM mixed media They sometimes throw Gaga. 27 caution to the wind Nigerian Lesbian 1 Forum 11 essay POGAY conversation Points to the progressive 6 A Straight Boy’s struggle of Nigerian Broken Body: An 1 Manifesto: Queer lesbians—how far they have 8 Interview with Folk are the New Africans come Unoma Azuah IFEDIMMA OSAKWE ABSALOM I was a Straight Boy Crusader. LGBT bodies are not cursed; 29 pictograph they are blessed. The Mannequins memoir 1 NEEC These giant dolls can be so fiction 19 2 Friends in a Ship sexy without their pants and Rebellion’s Rebirth 1 AMATESIRO DORE clothes 9 KARANJA NZISA He listened to my past like a We had loved without limit. priest. 32 Notes on photography 22 poetry 1 Contributors 01 Lost Pride Petals for Wale EGHO DANDELION 1 SEUN IDRIS 1 And the tenderest of swaying I love another man, and it makes me feel like a pretty moves flower 8 14: AN ANTHOLOGY OF QUEER ART/We are Flowers note We are Flowers THE EDITOR surprising, and heart-warming, the volume of he idea came to me on a languorous works coming into the email, considering the T evening, incomplete, hazy: I wanted to smallness of time. Nigerians, only, we had said. collect an anthology of art works to be But an email from South Africa came in. published on the anniversary of the ‘anti-gay Another from the UK: I am not gay, the artist law’—as a middle finger to our homophobic declared, but this does not stop me from fighting for society, but more importantly as a coup. equality, does it? “That date will become our Pride Day,” I said It doesn’t, and neither does space— to Absalom, who had injected faith and we cannot refuse these acts of solidarity, a 14 team excitement into the idea.