Descend the steps of Menier Gallery and walk into its current exhibition, where the first artwork you will encounter is a sculpture adorned with butterflies. Upon the sculpture’s side, you espy a strange symbol.
Following the instructions on the wall, download an app, and scan the symbol with your phone, where a butterfly will flutter into being on your camera screen. Turn up the volume, or bring your earphones, because as the ultramarine insect beats its wings, two voices read out the same poem: one in English, and one in a South Asian tongue. Listen to the poem as you study the sculpture. There are three of these artworks to enjoy.
It’s a clever, innovative way of opening the GFEST Visual Arts Exhibition, which showcases the work of five established and emerging Asian LGBTQI artists. The sculptural work is that of Maya Chowdhry, who works with poet Sarah Hymas to create the beguiling poetic sculptures, made from paper collage. The holistic effect is to provoke thought about the impact of climate change on the Indian sub-continent. Excellent.
As you wander through the underground gallery, your attention may be taken by very small photographs on the walls, all framed in red. This is the work of Sunil Gupta, a man who turned to art to deal with the feelings of social exclusion his HIV diagnosis brought about. These intimate snapshots of two different couples, one of whom involves Gupta himself, are affecting – particularly one image of two pairs of feet at the end of a bed – and striking because of their unlikely size in such an expanse of blank wall. Yet personally, I would have preferred them bigger (don’t we all?).
Which is where Charan Singh’s stunning and luxurious shots of queer working class and trans men: “kothis” (effemininate and underprivileged), “hijras” (eunuchs) and “giriyas” (their partners). Beautiful and vast, the portraits command the eye and demand studying of their fierce subjects, clad in traditional Asian dress.
Raju Rage presents an entrancing video of their self, a gender queer person with breasts and beard, getting dressed in traditional Sikh garb, whilst images are projected over their body. A soundtrack of Rage’s voice, speaks about heartbreaking facts, like the Sikhs who had to discard their turbans to find work when they first moved to this country.
And the final artist is Raisa Kabir. She presents a series of photograph essays through montages, which are all fantastic. The shape of the photographs, to the subjects studied, to the female Muslim queer activist going into a mosque with a beanie instead of a hijab, Kabir has manifest talent.
Go see this stunning and invigorating exhibition, for windows into different worlds of race, sexuality and culture.
• GFEST Visual Arts Exhibition 2015 is running until Sat 14th November. Mon-Sat, 11am-6pm. Free entry. Menier Gallery, Lower Gallery, 51 Southwark Street, SE1 1RU.
