Identity Politics

Artswipe has been flooded with fan mail of late. Bags of it. Weekdays at approximately 3:27pm my favourite postie, Maxine, arrives on my doorstep to unload those canvas sacks. It's around the same time of day that the kids in the neighbourhood walk home from school, occasionally stopping to play hopscotch, trade marbles and compare Nike logos. I might paint that image one day. In oils.

The recurring questions my fans ask: "Who are you?" and "What do you look like?" As I stopped buying letter-writing stationary around the time I signed up to Blogspot dot com, I thought I'd reply en mass with a little lesson about identity politics and a collage I made of my name.

Identity is never singular, never constant and is in continual flux. In contrast, a dictionary I consulted defines identity as "the state of being identical or absolutely the same; selfsameness of character or quality."

I prefer flux - or Fluxus, to use her full name.

Strange as it sounds, people regularly consult my homespun take on identity politics. I always use the medium of dance (genre: contemporary) to demonstrate identity's multiplicity because I guess none of us really understood Judith Butler's work, but carry on regardless, daily debating "performativity" at the office watercooler.

My backup dance troop, The Hegemony Dancers, accompany my act (when they're not touring the Westfield circuit). Today we promise to make meaning like never before.