Learn Togetherness III: What is in Our Gait? The Performative & Queer

In the 2023 edition of ‘Learn Togetherness’, curated by Sujoy Prosad Chatterjee, on the theme ‘What is in our gait? The Performative and Queer’, features selected responses and opinions that address the aspect of the performative (if any) in the LGBTIQ++ community. What does it mean to be performative? Is it a dialogue? A form of struggle against the heteronormative? A tool for the queer token? A form of being and behaving that is common to all, including the heteronormative?

What is in our gait? The Performative and Queer

The theme invited one – irrespective of their sexual preferences – to identify, decode, explore, and discuss the omnipresent existence of the ‘performative’ through the queer lens. LGBTIQ++ is a living movement with a rich history — constantly disrupting accepted notions of gender and questioning the traditional knowledge system. Queer performativity plays a key role in reshaping mainstream ideas while simultaneously breaking definitive boundaries.

The attributes of the performative are celebrated, desired, and behaviorally incubated within the queer spectrum. However, sheer identity mockery triggered by precarious orthodox ideas and myths prevails within the general mass.

The selected Visual artists and Performance artists’ works acknowledge and portray the potentially performative and transformational emotions of varied representations of diverse gender and sexual identities.