Art and Activism in India Published by Tulika Books, New Delhi Edited by Shivaji K Panikkar and Deeptha Achar (2012) On the Making of Bombay Longing: Queer Activism in Art and Cinema - Georgina Maddox (original) (raw)

Georgina Maddox examines, through the lens of personal experience during the making of a short film, 'Bombay Longing', with filmmaker Shalini Kantayya , at the phenomenon of art and activism through the medium of independent short films. This paper is not shaped as a systematic and linear exposition of a well-worked out argument; rather, it carries marks of the fragmentary nature and episodic structure of the film itself. On one hand, I seek, in this paper, to locate the film in the arena of queer activism, I draw on concepts such as ‘outing’ and ‘closet’, ‘mainstream’ and ‘minority’, ‘self’ and ‘other’ to articulate the manner in which the logic of the film is implicated in the context of queer thought, queer issues. On the other hand, my paper seeks to reflect upon the implications of the entry of queer activism at the site of art. What happens to art when it becomes activist? The film is a three minute DV (digital video) presentation that was jointly directed by the two of us. The film thematizes queer identity: Bombay Longing dovetails between the personal and public in a manner that most art and often, much of literature does. To say that it occupies a political space would in that sense, not be incorrect although its stance is more understated. Put simply, it is not openly propagandist in making a statement about queer identity in a metropolis like Mumbai, but rather, allows the viewer to decode the tensions, possibilities and contradictions of such a subject position from the three personal narratives strung together. The central protagonist, the ‘artist’ herself, carries the narrative through public and private spaces negotiated by her, addressing what it means to travel these spaces as a queer person in a society which is largely heterosexist.