QUEER HETEROTOPIAS

Socially Engaged Arts Salon introduces a new exhibition at the Ledward Centre

The work of Gil Mualem-Doron, a Brightonbased artist, academic and founder of SEAS (Socially Engaged Arts Salon), is socially and politically engaged, exploring urban history, social justice, identity, transcultural aesthetics, migrations and displacement.

“SEAS began in my living room five years ago. At the last exhibition there were 70 to 80 people. You had people outside on the street. Inside nobody could move. We had four dogs running around, we had two film crews and a choir singing in the living room. The people outside were heckled by my neighbour who was a 90-year-old UKIP supporter. She said it’s not the Middle East and they can’t stand like that in the street.

“It all got a bit much. We moved to the Black & Minority Ethnic (BME) community in Brighton. Our space was in the basement.” Gil needed a space where the artwork could be presented with more visibility – basements bring obvious limitations. He found an empty space by the library and made some inquiries. It turned out to be none other than the about-to-be-born Ledward Centre, the new LGBTQ+ community space in the heart of Brighton.

The latest SEAS exhibition, Queer Heterotopias, runs until the end of September, hopefully with some live events if the Ledward Centre opens over the next couple of months. “Heterotopia is a Michel Foucault concept. ‘Hetero’ means other, ‘Topia’ means space. It’s about other places, not utopias or dystopias. A heterotopia could be bad or good but it’s different. For example, prisons are heterotopias – a kind of parallel space. Colonies are heterotopias.

“He talks about the ships of fools from the Middle Ages – mentally ill people were put on ships and sent to sea. In terms of LGBTQ+ spaces we can look at nightclubs, saunas and cruising areas. Places where sexuality is acted in a different way than it would be in hertronormative spaces.

“One of the artists is Annis Harrison. She does embroidery so it’s very feminine, very domestic, but she’s depiticing sex scenes on the London Undeground – which I found funny. We also look at the work of Leonard Fink, he’s a very famous photographer. He was part of my PhD research into cruising in public spaces. He took a lot of photos of the gay scene in New York in the ‘70s and ‘80s. The ones we were interested in are the ones from the piers: the cruising areas. We were granted access to the photos by the LGBTQ+ Centre in New York. It’s kind of what I’m hoping the Ledward Centre will become.

“We have piers in Brighton too, so there’s a link even though it’s set in New York. There’s also the photo of ISTVÁN by Brighton Pier: in one shot he’s dressed as a man and in one shot he’s dressed as a woman.

“Foucault references piers in his work as well; it’s kind of like the funfair. Something unreal – it’s a fantasy – but it is real because you buy a ticket and go there.

“We also have Menelas, a porn director who curates a porn festival in Greece. We created a fake advertisement film for Athens, so imagine a tourism advert for gay travellers. Instead of showing some photos of gay Pride or a gay couple drinking a coffee, he shows the underground gay scene. You see explicit sex scenes on the beach. Not the kind of culture the authorities would depict in their tourism videos!”

As the Ledward Centre is not yet open, the exhibition is online. The doors will be opening soon, however. There have been some delays due to the pandemic.

“The exhibition will be the last one – hopefully! – just in the window and online. If it can open we might do a one-off screening of the films we have – about eight short films, all very diverse. When we start to exhibit inside it will be in October for Photo Fringe. It will be an immersive environment downstairs. You’ll have a pop-up cafe. It will be in the dark and you’ll have projections.”

When the centre opens there will be a short period of pop-ups. SEAS Exhibition will be the first thing you’ll see at the Ledward Centre. It will eventually have a cafe upstairs. There’ll be more renovation, including a new gallery space. Gaydio will be moving in. There will be a small cinema too and a community meeting room.

Finally, how would Gil sum up Brighton’s art scene? “I think it’s getting better. I opened SEAS in very difficult conditions. When we opened it was almost a desperate act. I’m a socially engaged artist. I just didn’t see many places to exhibit this kind of art. There is a lot of art here but a lot of it is catered to the commercial scene. As there is wealth in Brighton people can afford it. You have a lot of tourists so a lot of art is catered towards that.

“I opened SEAS to show socially and politically engaged art. We’ve had hundreds of artists at SEAS now. We also exhibit the work of underrepresented artists. There are still boundaries about what you can exhibit. We’ve had complaints about some of the work we’ve shown, such as the work of a Syrian refugee artist. He depicted the Vitruvian Man from behind with Boris Johnson’s face on his ass. Arabic text on top of the poster translated to ‘ass face’. It was a reference to Johnson calling gay people ‘batty boys’ in an article.” Some people complained about that one, but if Boris can insult people in his articles and become Prime Minister, then artists should be able to express themselves accordingly.

To view Queer Heterotopias, visit: www.seasbrighton.org/queer-heterotopias