In Conversation With: Yusuf Ismail

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Features

25 In Conversation With: Yusuf Ismail

Yusuf Ismail is the multifaceted Cardiff-based creative curator behind Cardiff’s ‘My City, My Shirt’ exhibition, succeeded by two murals based in both Butetown and the city centre. Yusuf’s work highlights the intersection of Blackness and football and elevates the beauty found close to home.

I understand that this project originally started as a photography-based exhibition. What inspired you to go on to create murals?

Frustration. MCMS was at limited capacity. I felt that this body of work needed as much visibility as possible, to enable people, particularly people from my community, in places like Butetown (the oldest black community in Wales) to see this body of work.

The reason that we chose May Muna is that we saw her in St. Mary Street, and she was visibly glowing.

Her skin was a shade of dark brown I had never seen before; it was so beautiful. I met a Nigerian guy during the project, and he said “Black is energy. Black people are energy - walking, talking, breathing energy.” It really impacted me and made me think that’s the kind of energy I want this mural to have.

As soon as the photo of her came about, it was so magical…If you’re excited about your work in that way, you know that you’ve got something special on your hands.

The project has been described as using visual arts and football to promote inclusivity in sports. Is this something that you have always been passionate about? Have your own experiences with sport and race played an important part in your motivations for this project?

100%. Football is a cornerstone of UK culture – but it is artistic to me. So much skill and technique. From a young age, it is drilled into you that ‘because you’re black you have all of these physical attributes which make you different’, whilst white players are commended for their intellect. You can even hear this in football commentary.

Being black within Britain came with so much baggage and I wanted to address this indirectly. In my work, my views are more considered, which is important to me.

Does Unify have any other projects lined up for the future?

We are doing one currently with Adidas – My Club, My Shirt, they’ve been very kind and supportive. We have just finished shooting with Manchester United which is super surreal. The one I am most excited about is coming up – Arsenal, it’s my club, and they have given us free rein and really let us express ourselves. We have more clubs to shoot after, which should bring us to the end of 2021!

Photography by: @_inco from @redbrck

In your speech at the MCMS you said you were thankful for the people around you, namely ‘your tribe’ - how have these people contributed to your artistic journey?

I don’t even think they have purely contributed to my artistic journey; they’ve contributed to my selfdevelopment as a human being. If you are genuine about what you do and you involve the people around you, people will naturally give their opinion. You should have a circle around you where you can share ideas free of judgement. Thankfully, I have healthy people around me where we are critiquing and bouncing ideas off of each other.

Creating such beautiful and large scale work you must encounter challenges - what hurdles have you faced that could inspire other artists in Cardiff to keep pursuing their goals?

“Focus on what’s in front of you, be present. And write it down! When you write down an idea, you are halfway there.”

Third, is failure. I used to be so scared of it – it sounds corny, but failure is the first step to learning. Pharrell Williams is one of my biggest inspirations, he says to be transparent in all of your ideas, to share knowledge and resources. People can be paranoid of others stealing their ideas, but an idea and an execution are two different things.

I believe this is all run by a higher power. There’s a saying that God is only helpful to those who help themselves. You’ve got to put in the work.

3-year timeline - Where were you a year ago, where would you describe yourself today? And where do you want to be in a year?

A year ago – I didn’t know where my life would go; one magical thing about the pandemic is that everyone around me has blossomed, and I have been very fortunate. A year from now I want to lock that in, reap the benefits, and be a better version of myself.

Can you give Quench 3 words that have been key to your journey (throughout the creation of the murals)?

Persistence, Faith, and Gratitude.

Interviewed by: Chloe Giles Design by: Isabel Brewster Photography by: @_inco from @redbrck

“Black is energy. Black people are energy - walking, talking, Breathing energy.”

Photography by: Hannah Layton, @laytonhannah Models: Reuben Fatoye, @reubenfatoye Amarie Jones, @._amariejones._

Lesbian Epithet: the Heteronormativity of Identity

Identity is a weird thing for me. In general, the term refers to the aspects of ourselves that make us who we are, including our name, personality, physical and personal characteristics, as well as the way that the world views us. But since coming out my identity has, more often than not, been shoved into one singular fact about me: my sexuality.

In my first year, I was in Talybont North. I can remember the nerves of arriving at my accommodation, crammed into that flat with six strangers, in a house filled with even more strangers. I came out pretty early on because, in all honesty, I didn’t want to see the change in behaviour that happens to a friend when they find out my sexuality. So, I was living my best pre-COVID life, going out every night, getting tickets for events with acquaintances who I’ve since ended up never speaking to again, and getting to know everyone I can. It was only a couple of weeks after freshers where I learned of my new given epithet.

My housemates were picking up tickets from a flat upstairs for a bar crawl, and when they’d asked for mine, the boy who was handing them out couldn’t place which ‘Kate’ they were getting the tickets for. After my friend said it was for her flatmate, his response was “Oh, Lesbian Kate?”. My flatmates had come down the stairs and told me laughing, but I didn’t, and still don’t, see the humour in it. Three years on, and what should have been a memory long forgotten, of a boy I didn’t even know handing out tickets, I still remember it clearly and cringe. Since that point, I’ve paid a lot more attention to how I am described to people, and I’ve realised that some random stranger’s identification of me isn’t a one-off case. Some of my closest friends at university and from home have pointed to my sexuality as being my key identifier. A close friend of my housemates was still using it recently until I found out. In all honesty, they probably still call me Lesbian Kate. And it would maybe be kind of okay if the word lesbian didn’t come with all the negative connotations that straight people associate it with. As a general vocab point, lesbian doesn’t mean ugly. Or weird. Its simple purpose is to define my attraction to women. But even when you take out the casual homophobia implied when people use the word lesbian to describe someone they don’t even know, my friends and acquaintances are still using this term as my identifier to others, and it makes no sense. I’m not walking around with a sign on my head that says lesbian, so how can the people who’ve been told I’m Lesbian Kate know that it is me, Kate (who happens to be a lesbian) when they meet me?

The issue lies in the “normality” of heterosexuality. Heteronormativity, I should say. There’s a great video that a YouTuber called Alexis G Zall made which perfectly portrays this issue. The events her straight friends discuss around her are designed for straight people and tailored to heteronormative relationships: from boys nights at football games to weddings and board games centred on dating the opposite gender.

When Alexis mentions her own life and the events she takes part in, the biggest difference between them is the fact that Alexis’ stories are tailored for LGBTQ+ people. The friends are irritated by her “constantly” talking about being gay, with the irony lies in the fact that their lives are dictated by their heterosexuality. A male character says the line “my girlfriend Olivia says that sometimes gay people attach being gay to their whole identity,” which I think sums straight people’s lack of awareness of this heteronormativity perfectly.

When heterosexuality is the presumed norm, anything that diverts from it seems to stick out, particularly when homophobia is still so ingrained. Assumptions that my sexuality is such a huge part of my identity that it deserves to be my identifier betray the imposed importance of heteronormativity on every aspect of society. Yes, being lesbian has a huge impact on my life, often in ways I wish it didn’t even have to, but being straight also dictates a major part of all of those around me: they just don’t see it because it’s “normal”. I sit in a room full of straight people, nights out in straight clubs, dancing and kissing straight people, and going on straight dates can often take hours to discuss.

Meanwhile, my one night out in a gay club, for which I begged my straight friends to find the time out of their precious straight schedules, was a major chore to one of my flatmates, whose life was a heteronormative dream of childhood sweethearts and best friends that are also childhood sweethearts. The homophobic irony was not lost on me that she didn’t want to hear about my own dating life unless it involved a male friend of hers (whom she tried to set me up with throughout my first year).

I’m Kate, and I am a lesbian, but my identity contains so much more as well, and if those other things happen to relate to my sexuality, it’s simply because I’ve found the spaces where I’m the norm; where people talk about me for me, rather than who I date.

Words by: Kate Waldock Design by: Isabel Brewster Artwork via pixabay by: 愚木混株CDD20

Photographer: Hannah Layton, @laytonhannah Model: Amarie Jones, @_.amariejones._

Photography by: Hannah Layton, @laytonhannah Model: @amariejones