https://vimeo.com/channels/ladascreens/
George Chakravarthi
Barflies
Online from 12 December 2018 – 25 January 2019
Originally a three-screen installation, Barflies offers representations of different femininities embodied by transvestites and cross-dressers, the pleasures, fears and dangers of being in public ‘en femme’ and the relationship they have with the heterosexual male.
The different styles of Maureen, Claire and Jasmine signify some of the variations found within feminine identities in the transvestite/cross-dressing communities. Barflies also highlights the specificity of TV/cross-dressers in relation to public, social spaces. Many women ‘born female’ do not feel comfortable alone in bars because of the threat of unwanted attention from heterosexual men. Being out in a social space such as a bar for most TV/cross-dressers is often celebrated as a triumph, where a mixture of fear and delight may be experienced through a public expression of one’s female self.
Recorded on telephone chat-lines, the soundtrack offers an intimate undercurrent to the unedited footage. Transvestites, transsexuals, cross-dressers and their seekers engage in conversations which interlace the private, confessional and sexual.
Barflies has been screened at Site Gallery (Sheffield, 2002), Tate Modern (London, 2006) and was screened most recently for LADA’s Just Like A Woman programme for the City of Women Festival (Slovenia, 2013).
George Chakravarthi’s artistic practice spans over a decade of live performance, video installation and photography. Predominantly engaging with the politics of identity and representations of the self, the works often cross and renegotiate the restrictions of space, culture and heritage.
A limited edition print derived from Barflies (2002) is available to buy on Unbound.
An online event to celebrate the launch of artist and writer Tara Fatehi Irani’s new book Mishandled Archive, published by LADA. Be ready for some dressing up and shaking shoulders.
Read moreled by Joon Lynn Goh An open conversation with performingbordersLIVE20 artists and writers in residence (Àníké Bello, Jade Foster, Istanbul Queer Art Collective, Jade Montserrat and The White Pube). Not fully emergent from the global pandemic, what have we as individuals, and the respective communities that we are part of, learnt about time? Sunday 25 October, 2.30pm-4pm
Read morePerformingBorders2020 ‘Lavender Man’ screening by Tania El Khoury in collaboration with Mohamad Ali “Dali” Agrebi
Read morePerformingBorders2020 ‘Re:Seeding in correspondence’ screening by Jade Montserrat and Webb-Ellis.
Read moreA three-day gathering, bringing all the performingbordersLIVE20 together to reimagine borders-free collaborative Live Art practices.
Read moreA screening of A Declaration of Independence, a film documenting the first iteration of A Declaration of Independence in June 2018 at LADA, performed by Selina Rose, Paula Pinho Martins Nacif, Chloe Filani, Marwa Belghazi, Buki Bayode, Foluke Taylor, and Aisha Mohammed.
Read moreA series of film and digital works by Krishna Istha, River Lin, La Ribot, Robin Deacon and Nicola Fornoni.
Read moreA series of film and digital works by Jamie Hale, Lois Weaver, Tehching Hsieh and Nando Messias, plus LADA Screens Keith Khan.
Read more