“(Trans)Altars: Embodied Performances of Black Queer Religiosity”

• In Event: "The Ecologies of Black Queer Worldmaking."

Description for Program

In this presentation, I discuss the work of three trans artists and practitioners of African Traditional Religions (ATRs) who use ritual art to redefine landscapes of trans and queerphobia. I examine the ritual art of Wit López, a trans non-binary Black Puerto Rican artist in Philadelphia, Johan Mijael, an Afro Dominican trans woman poet and performance artist, and Bashexo, a trans multimedia African American artist based in Boston. Their performances demonstrate not only how they rearticulate societal borders through their bodily performance but also how they forge borderland spaces for other queer and trans people who engage in their performance. These artists offer embodied (trans)altars in which they counter cis-hertero-patriarchal white supremacy and create spaces that force audiences to re-engage the trans-body.

Author

• Elena Guzman, Indiana University Bloomington