With what degree of transversing would one be satisfied?
"Dressed as a conservative.... slightly shabby nearly middle-aged Jewish lower middle classmate. Oreet was out being tourist in Delhi. The act of gender crossing had shielded Oreet from the male gaze...'letting her be' for a while. Oreet had her portrait sketched...one could see that the portrait artist assumed Oreet was male...a sharply depicted angular jaw line sealed this observation. People dropped in to see what was going on...drawn in by the odd looking Jewish man and the cameras. A while later she returned to the artist, only this time with a Palestinian scarf over her/his head... This time s/he attracted much more attention. The catchy red and white pattern.... and the scarf gave her gender identity an interesting twist. Some of the onlookers could actually sense that it was a difficult portrait to sketch...and soon a small crowd gathered around the artist to watch him render the portrait. It was apparent that the artist was by now completely confused about Oreet's gender identity....perhaps even a little disturbed. This infact went on to affect the quality of his work.... at the end we got a confused sketch...." Rahul Bhattacharya
During the residency I also went to Dilli Haat, where I asked a street portrait drawer to draw me whilst I was dressed as Jewish Man and than to draw me as I was dressed with a Palestinian or Arabic Kafia. This is part of my interest in the cultural cross over between Judaism and Islam.
The visit as a whole was of tremendous importance to me. My work deals generally with cultural identity and cultural anxiety, visiting India give me a first hand experience into a non-western perspective, something I only experienced before in my birth place at the Middle East.
Now In England, where Asian artists form a very important part of the cultural diverse art scene and where I am currently mentoring a second generation artist from Punjab for Fierce performance festival, this experience seems fundamental to my development as an artist with interest in cultural diversity.
I an hoping to come back and develop the relationship further by trying to talk to the Live Art Development Agency and the Surry Institute, where I am a visiting lecturer, about the potential for some exchange programme, or a programme of Indian performance work visiting the UK.
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