Queer Childhoods
by Mayank Agarwal
Delhi
Project Description
Queer Childhoods is an archival and media project in which I am faciliting conversations over childhood photographs in family albums of queer individuals in order to queer the idea of childhood.
Expected Impact
The goal is to initiate a larger conversation about queerness and childhood through looking at our own photographs, rediscovering our queerness and reclaiming the time and memories of childhood. I am planning to build an eclectic media archive that is public and participatory, I have made a photographic performance/multimedia installation which gives a curated glimpse of some of the narratives I have gathered. I am interested in the varied manifestations of queerness for different experiences marked by different social identities. Therefore, while queer visibility is definitely one of my motivating factors, the broader goal is to move beyond notions of exhibitionism, representation or universality towards being more sensitive to the abundance of different experiences of queerness. In the conversations that I am having through this project aim to initiate a queer reclamation of time and memory by the individuals themselves where childhood is not just a site of trauma but a generative space holding therapeutic potential. The project also explores artistic, creative and disruptive ways of engaging with personal archives.
Applicant Background
I have received a seed grant previously to create a photographic performance out of few of the interviews I had conducted till then. Now I am working to create an online media archive of collected photographs accompanied by the individual reflections. I am still mulling over the form and infrastructure of the archive. Along with this, I am planning to expand the project and interview more people. Finally, I had plans to do a series of video and photographic portraits with selected individual participants from the project that could not happen as I ran out of funds from the previous grant. The project in a way approaches the personal photographic archives of childhood with the intention of queering not just the photographs but the notion of childhood itself. It prioritises the agency of the queer individual as the focus becomes not the representative image but the act of listening in order to uncover suppressed imaginaries, silences and memories that lie behind the surface of the photograph. In that logic, the photographic performance had the intention of opening up the past as a generative space instead of just a site of trauma. In continuation of that, the photographic and video portraits will involve collaborative production with each selected participant to bring to life those hidden imaginaries that had come up in the conversations on the childhood photographs. In a way, the entire project engenders a reclamation of childhood selves and imaginaries for different queer individuals. In terms of the timeline, I already have a relationship of trust and care with many of the participants of my project. I have mentioned the intention to create this series with them which has been received with a lot of interest and enthusiasm. Over the months, the work will involve holding more conversations about self-images and thinking through the visual ideas collaboratively. After that process, there will be planned locations, setup and shooting. After that, I will be creating 4-5 such portraits in the form of mixed medium. In my work till now, the boundary between the documentation and the work has been blurry as many of the recorded conversations end up becoming a major part of the work not just as its basis and process but also the final form (which is constantly mutating).
Resources Needed
- Funding
- Mentorship
- Visibility
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