Beyond The Feminine: The Politics Of Skin Colour And Gender In Visual Culture is out today
BY DR OPE LORI, IMAGE BY AJAMU X
“The erotic is not only sexual, it’s political, it’s philosophical, it’s ephemeral. It’s all these other things as well and that’s the frustration, because we only link it to the sexual body.”
– Ajamu X
These were the words taken from an intimate conversation with Black British queer male photographer Ajamu X, on the politics of the darkroom, the locus of pleasure and the erotic, as we sat in the artist’s home studio. We broached many hot topics that afternoon, not forgetting our unravelling of the term Queer, and whether as a way of being or a mode of doing – “queering” – if the very notion still operated within a binary framework? Queer, as Ajamu X would go on to say, “is like tissue paper and you can get it anywhere.” Of course, there was more context to this throwaway statement, which was ultimately about questioning how we see and do things differently.
The use of the word beyond in the title of the book and the aesthetics of its look, was not to hail some new sci-fi trilogy, although you would be forgiven in thinking so. This is a work that quite simply calls on us to raise our consciousness, especially as we navigate the choppy terrains of current social tensions, gender wars, race wars, executive orders and public disorders.
The power of the erotic was coined by Audre Lorde, the self-described “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior and poet”, who was a pivotal figure in the 1980s, with a key body of feminist works. The erotic as she defined it was a resource we could tap into, that lied within a deeply female and spiritual plane, rooted in the power of an unexpressed and unrecognized feeling. It is – and I say this in the present tense – a deep, inner knowing, and an awareness of being in opposition to a very mainstream and patriarchal way of doing things.
I decided to use the image of Red Shift, a video installation I filmed of two women playfighting in front of a camera, underneath a red-tinted light to evoke Lorde’s reference to the power of the erotic, as the front cover of the book. The word erotic itself is derived from the Greek word “eros”, meaning love in all its aspects, whether sexual or non-sexual, intimacy or simply making friendships and connections with other people. These women of different races and skin complexions have been red washed, where I’m playing devil’s advocate in asking what if skin colour were irrelevant, how then would we engage with ideas of gender between them? Who would we read as being masculine or feminine when the illusion and trappings of colour are rendered in(visible)?
Lorde’s legacies are as relevant today as they were in the 80s, calling on us to draw from the erotic in all aspects of our work, life and ultimately, being. This is the power of women coming together across the colour line, especially at a time where the definitions of what it means to be a woman, are being challenged across multiple spectrums, but perhaps only through looking in one dimension.
Instead of seeing ourselves divided from others, to the point of being conquered and controlled by those in power, we must, as she says, “define and empower”, only then can we see that there are much more commonalities between us, as those in power would have us believe; for now is the time to learn about how to broach that dividing line – of looking and feeling beyond our selves.
Beyond The Feminine: The Politics Of Skin Colour And Gender In Visual Culture by Ope Lori is out on the 24 July and published by Bloomsbury.
*Use the following discount codes to save 20% on bloomsbury.com/9781350204843. UK, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, South and Central America: GLR BD8
DIVA magazine celebrates 31 years in print in 2025. If you like what we do, then get behind LGBTQIA+ media and keep us going for another generation. Your support is invaluable.
