Launch at Seksualiti Merdeka

written by Jac Sm Kee on Sunday, October 17, 2010 at 10:12am

The launch of HerStory Malaysia at the Annexe Gallery, KL 2010

I haven’t been for events in awhile, but it’s Seksualiti Merdeka time, so mesti! I also made a conscious effort to make it for the Herstory launch, not only because I wanted to support the awesome women behind it – Mien, Paik Yin, Smita, Angela, Effa & more – but also because I felt it was one of the singularly feminist event at SM this year. Sometimes in activism around sexuality issues, no matter how well placed the intentions, the same kind of gendered power relations can get replicated. The prominence of gay issues and rights over lesbian perspectives and realities, and trans women over trans men (which makes me wonder if the gender-contagion is harder to dissipate than imagined..). So I guess maybe it’s my own sense of skewy politix that made me sikat my rambut, dig out a pair of clean pants & go. Plus I haven’t had the chance to go for any SM events yet, so double bonus double happiness double double ^^

It was packed. Ez and I got there at tepat-tepat pukul 8, and there was a line snaking down from the entrance of the Annex gallery down to the stairs. First good sign. We checked out the “Portraits of the Unspoken” art project and took our turn to shuffle down the que to register. Of course by the time we got into the room, there were no more seats. Even the small landing up some steps was crammed with excited people bercangkung together-gether. Those of us standing at the back were ushered to the front of the stage and sat on the floor – okaylah, good view but sakit buntut after a few hours!

The launch started with the usual speeches and stuff. The host turned out to be Sarimah Ibrahim, apparently one of M’sia’s top TV host. She was actually really good. There was almost not a single “uhm” or pause between words the entire night, and she was able to relate personally to the event, engage the people present, and only made a couple of almost-sexist joke -^. Yasmin & Angela spoke about the importance of hearing women’s stories, in all its diversity and texture of voices. And especially on something as susceptible to stereotypes as women’s sexuality – there are too few spaces that privilege the many different types of realities, experiences, perceptions and conceptualisation of women.

And I think Herstory really did just that.

The night opened with Shh…Diam! – a quirky, charming, senyum-sampai-mulut-ternganga-inducing band that sang openly about loving another woman, the importance of clean bathrooms in the art of courtship and evil woman, the importance of clean bathrooms in the art of courtship and evil women twisting like daggers under your skin. “I love you Julie! Fuck what they say! Lalalala”. Nice catchy riffs, 4-piece all grrl band, smart-ass lyrics. Lovely. Absolutely terlalu completely fuckin’ lovely. I am officially now a fan.

It also got me thinking about the importance of cultural references in the formation of queer identity, queer spaces, queer politics. The first lessons in queerdom probably began with books or movies. Opening up narratives that challenge the usual girl-meets-boy-meets-girl mythology. Bits of lives that sometimes speak to our own silent struggles to just come to term with our own Difference. And having a theme song definitely helps. Having home-grown theme songs that absolutely rocked my socks off is just… damn! I’m alive in lucky times.

And I’m also thinking this is why Herstory is important too. Creating cultural artifacts and discourses that speaks about the diversity of women’s lives and voices. Even in the kind of ‘normal’, heard-before stories, the way they are told through the films casts them in new light. (spoiler alert – dont read if haven’t seen the films yet!)

My personal favourite is Crystal Woo’s film, Spirited. Shots of many different women in their everyday spaces, making things with their hands, playing, doing, strung together rhythmically and narratively with a song byMonoloque. I tried to search my head for an adjective for the song, but failed. It just worked. At times tensed, at times lulling, at times anxious, they accompany the visual glimpses into the women’s lives really well. When asked by one of the audience members after the film, on what the story was, Crystal explained that it was about the emotional turns in a relationship between two people, without the details of what happened cluttering its affective essence. The film centres on a dialogue between A.A. Lee (pseudonym of the writer who chose to be anonymous) and another person, and Crystal took the emotional response and journey and created something akin to poetry in her short film. The images were gritty and in vivid colour, sometimes at a distance, sometimes intimate, loaded with layers of pregnant silences. Loved it.

Next was Ruby’s story, as told by Mien(.ly), called, Happy Massage. I was really quite impressed by the maturity and care taken by Mien in telling this story. The story is not an easy one, it’s pretty painful. It recounts Ruby’s experience in her youth, her abusive father, how she started doing sex work and drug-use. I saw the story as being about the many ways we can love and lose – how Ruby loved and lost a lover, loved and lost a friend, the twining of sexual being and love, and the disentangling of sexual being and love, and the continuous journey of different kinds of loss and love – sometimes painful, sometimes joyful – that she, and I guess all of us, go through in life, especially as women.

Then was Still by Mislina Mustaffa, about the story of a young girl who gave birth to a stillborn baby and the conversation between her landlord and another person about what to do with the potential consequences. The story was heard and recounted by Julya Ooi through a tensed dialogue, projected at the bottom of a shot of a large monsoon drain throughout the entire film. It’s raining heavily, the traffic light changes from green to red to orange and back again, and traffic shuffles by. Towards the end of the film, you’d expect a baby or something to float down the drain. Then came a weird mash-up of Shahrizat’s speech on how it’s time for men to “wake up” and take responsibility over I’m not sure what. Their lives or maybe the lives of women or maybe just their laundry. Never quite know with Shahrizat. I liked the Malay dialogue (the English one felt a bit forced), and the still of the monsoon drain is quite conceptually clever. Playing with suspense, and bringing up a lot of questions about how we relate to tough things – throw down the drain, jalan only etc. But I felt the mash-up at the end was annoying, too long and doesn’t really bring up anything new or different or engaging to the entire narrative. Almost like a political cop-out. Or maybe I just didn’t get it.

Bernice Chauly directed and narrated the next piece, written by Nadira Ilana, calledCreatures. It’s poem about love, and the twists and falls and flights in love, distances and in the living of a relationship named as love. When the poem borrowed from Greek mythology at the very beginning, I felt a little “urk” rising, but the imagery and motion graphics done by Fairuz Sulaiman was so beautifully done, it managed to instill enough patience so that this is contextualised within the story of the relationship. The photographs of, I imagine, her parents, at various stages in their lives together, collage-d throughout the captivating reading of the poem by Bernice was really very very awesome.

The last film was Sharifah Amani’s debut as a director in telling Susan Bansin’s story,Sangkar. Desire and sacrifice, and the muted dialogue in the space where two people have no ability to express their love for each other. It’s a love story between a young girl who lives with her sick mom in a dilapidated wooden house and a young boy who lives with his father in a huge bungalow, reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet. Except here, Romeo’s dad decided to marry Juliet. And the story focusses on the particular moment of “Ever after”, which is drenched with impossible longing and the continuance of life. Amazingly done.

It’s really something special, magic, that this project has created. Beautifully crafted works that tells complex and true stories. Multiple connections between storyteller, listener, re-tellers, and back again. Bringing to light amazing talent in filmmaking, music, acting, scriptwriting, organising and more. All the necessary bits in the politics and revolution of change through the critical agitation of normative reality that takes place in conversations over culture. Pop, art, and otherwise. I left Herstory and SM that night, feeling like I took part in an important part of M’sia’s herstory, and caught of glimpse of something really amazing and inspiring taking place. Lucky to be here. ^^

Writing this reflection in kudos to the women (and men) who made this happen. You grrls rock!

Categories: Announcements, Screenings

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