Alok Vaid-Menon

Alok Vaid-Menon
Vaid-Menon in 2018
Born (1991-07-01) July 1, 1991
College Station, Texas, U.S.
EducationStanford University (BA, MA)
Occupations
  • Writer
  • performance artist
  • media personality
Known forLGBTQ rights advocacy
MotherJyotsna Vaid
RelativesKrishna Baldev Vaid (grandfather)
Urvashi Vaid (aunt)
Websitealokvmenon.com

Alok Vaid-Menon (born July 1, 1991), also known mononymously as Alok (often stylized in all caps), is an American writer, performance artist, and media personality. Vaid-Menon is gender non-conforming and transfeminine, and uses singular they pronouns.[1][2]

Vaid-Menon's work addresses violence against trans and gender non-conforming people and critiques what they consider constraining gender norms.[2] They advocate for bodily diversity, gender neutrality, and self-determination.[3][4] Vaid-Menon has performed in over 40 countries.[5]

Early life and education

Vaid-Menon grew up in College Station, Texas. Their father is a Malayali who was born in Malaysia and worked as a professor. Their Punjabi mother Jyotsna Vaid worked as a health care executive; she grew up in Punjab and immigrated to New York in the late 1960s when Vaid-Menon's maternal grandfather Krishna Baldev Vaid got a college job in the United States.[6] LGBTQ rights activist, lawyer, and writer Urvashi Vaid was Vaid-Menon's maternal aunt.[7]

Growing up, Vaid-Menon was bullied for their race and gender expression.[8] They said they felt unable to come out on their own terms because as a gender non-conforming person, they did not know they were different until they were punished for it and told who they were.[9] They developed their art practice at a young age in response to this harassment. "Making art gave me the permission to live. I needed somewhere to put the pain."[8] They began to use poetry and style to interrupt other peoples’ assumptions, challenge shame, and declare themself on their own terms.[10] Because they were not able to express themself visually for fear of safety, they began to share their art online and received supportive responses.[11]

After leaving Texas, Vaid-Menon attended Stanford University where they graduated with a BA in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies[12][13] and comparative studies in race and ethnicity, as well as a masters in sociology in 2013.[14][15]

In 2019 Vaid-Menon returned to College Station to host a Pride celebration with the local LGBTQ community in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.[16]

Career

Performance and writing

From 2013 to 2017, they performed with former Stanford classmate Janani Balasubramanian as a slam poetry collective named DarkMatter, engaging in queer South Asian themes.[17]

In 2017, Vaid-Menon released their first book of poetry, Femme in Public, about harassment against transfeminine people.[18] They toured the show internationally, partnering with local trans artists and organizations.[19]

In 2018, they participated in a roundtable on beauty and discrimination published in WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly alongside Patricia Berne, Jamal T. Lewis, and others, stating: "As a gender non-conforming, transfeminine person, I am often told that I am ugly."[20]

In 2019, they completed an artist-in-residence at The Invisible Dog Art Center, performing "Strangers are Potential Friends" and hosting a "Valentine's Cry-In" to explore public grief and alternative forms of intimacy.[21] They have facilitated "Feelings Workshops" internationally.[22]

In 2020, they published Beyond the Gender Binary, writing: "The gender binary is cultural belief that there are only two distinct and opposite genders: man and woman. This belief is upheld by a system of power that exists to create conflict and division, not to celebrate creativity and diversity."[23]

Fashion

In a 2019 interview with Business of Fashion, Vaid-Menon advocated for the complete degendering of fashion and beauty industries.[24][25]

Vaid-Menon has designed gender-neutral fashion collections, which are known for their color and celebration of skirts and dresses as gender-neutral.[26] Fashion design became a "materialization of the life that [they were] living," a way to encapsulate what they were writing and thinking.[26] Their designs were at first inspired by imagining what they would wear if they didn't have to fear violence.[27] In their latest work, they are using fashion to challenge what kind of aesthetics are seen as natural and what are seen as artificial.[26]

Vaid-Menon has walked for several fashion brands for New York Fashion Week including Opening Ceremony,[28] Studio 189,[29] and Chromat.[30] They have modeled for several brands including Opening Ceremony,[31] Harry's, and Polaroid Eyewear. They have appeared in fashion magazines and editorials including Vogue,[32] Vogue Italia,[33] Bust magazine, Wussy Magazine,[8] and Paper magazine.[3]

Themes

Vaid-Menon's work addresses transmisogyny, violence against trans and gender non-conforming people, and TGNC representation.[34][35] Writing in Vice, Vaid-Menon said: "The majority of people still believe that trans is what we look like, and not who we are. We are reduced to the spectacle of our appearance."[34] In The Caravan, they said: "There is a long history of trans-femme bodies being reduced to metaphor, to symbol…and seen as stand-ins for ideas, fantasies, and nightmares."[2] They have argued that gender non-conforming people, despite being the most visible in public, remain the most neglected by the mainstream LGBT movement.[3]

Their performance style incorporates stream-of-consciousness, soundscapes, political comedy, and an emotional range.[19] They have said their style, like their identity, is in constant flux and refuses easy categorization,[9] and that performance is one of the only spaces where people can actually be real.[21] They have described performance as "world-making" with "a commitment to vulnerability, play, interdependence, and magic."[9] They have said the power of performance is that it is ephemeral and can never be done the same way twice,[35] and that they use it to teach "theories and histories that have been submerged."[36] In a 2018 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Vaid-Menon said: "The problem with a category is that you reduce something as celestial as a human being into a word. Words only approximate truth, and art is where we go when we actually want truth."[37]

Vaid-Menon has spoken about what they call "the international crisis of loneliness,"[27] and has sought to create public spaces for processing pain and establishing connection.[38][39] They have written about using technology as a conduit for intimacy.[40]

Critical reception

Vaid-Menon's practice spans photography, writing, clothing design, and video. Scholar Ace Lehner analyzed Vaid-Menon's work in the journal Refract, arguing that "trans offers a compelling challenge to photographic discourse." Lehner noted that Vaid-Menon photographs trans people and has discussed the difficulty of representing gender through visual art.[23]

Publications

  • Femme in Public (2017)[41]
  • "Entertainment Value" in Unwatchable (Rutgers University Press, 2019)[42]
  • Beyond The Gender Binary (2020)[43]
  • Your Wound/My Garden. (2021)[44]

Selected live performances

  • 2014: Queer New York International Arts Festival
  • 2015: Lincoln Center La Casita Festival
  • 2015, 2016: Public Theater Under the Radar Festival Festival
  • 2017: Centrale Fies Drodesera Festival
  • 2017: Naked Heart Festival Toronto
  • 2018: Keynote Performance - Transgender Europe Conference, Antwerp
  • 2018: Keynote Performance - Gender Unbound Festival Austin
  • 2019: Spoken Fest Mumbai
  • 2019: Keynote Performance—OUTShine EGALE Conference Fredericton, New Brunswick

TV and film appearances

  • Refinery 29 "Love Me" (2016)
  • "The Trans List" (HBO, 2016)
  • "Random Acts of Flyness" (HBO, 2018)[45]
  • Gender Diversity & Identity In Queertopia (Backlight National Dutch Documentary, 2019)
  • "What I Wish You Knew: Mental Health Roundtable" (Netflix, 2020)
  • A Little Late with Lilly Singh (NBC, Season 2, Episode 16, 2021)[46]
  • Absolute Dominion (Film, Post-production)[47]
  • Hannah Gadsby's Gender Agenda (Netflix, 2024)[48]

References

  1. ^ Vaid-Menon, Alok (October 13, 2015). "Greater transgender visibility hasn't helped nonbinary people – like me". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  2. ^ a b c Thomas, Skye Arundhati (March 17, 2017). ""I Understand the Project of Trans-Feminism To Be About the Liberation of All Genders": An Interview With the Poet and Performance Artist Alok Vaid-Menon". The Caravan. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  3. ^ a b c Sharma, Jeena (March 1, 2019). "ALOK: 'Beauty Is About Looking Like Yourself'". Paper. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  4. ^ Lubitz, Rachel (September 2, 2018). "The Body Hair Movement Isn't All Peach Fuzz & Happy Trails". www.refinery29.com. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  5. ^ "Alok Vaid-Menon Will Not 'Tone it Down'". The Advocate. August 28, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  6. ^ Sarkar, Monica (May 21, 2019). "Life as a transgender person of color: 'I erased a part of me'". CNN. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  7. ^ "When Representation Isn't Enough: Why All of Us Aren't Proud". Alok V Menon. June 4, 2014. Archived from the original on January 27, 2024. Retrieved May 17, 2022.
  8. ^ a b c Smith, Dakota (June 19, 2019). "How Art Created Alok Vaid-Menon". WUSSY MAG. Archived from the original on March 20, 2020. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  9. ^ a b c Wagenknecht, Addie. "Alok On Gender Binaries And Their New Fashion Collection". Forbes. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  10. ^ Fox-Suliaman, Jasmine (November 22, 2019). "6 Transgender Models Talk Activism, Identity, and Style". Who What Wear. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  11. ^ "Looking Beyond The Gender Binaries With Queer Performance Artist Alok Vaid-Menon". Verve Magazine. October 23, 2018. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  12. ^ "Alok Vaid-Menon | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies". feminist.stanford.edu. Retrieved August 13, 2022.
  13. ^ "From Alok Vaid Menon to Sai Pallavi: 6 young multi-hyphenates you need to know about". Vogue India. April 28, 2021. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
  14. ^ Murray, Derek Conrad, ed. (2022). Visual culture approaches to the selfie. Routledge history of photography. New York London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-367-20610-9.
  15. ^ Dicochea, Perlita R. (May 26, 2022). "ALOK (CSRE '13) on Making a Life". Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. Stanford University. Archived from the original on May 26, 2022. Retrieved March 24, 2024.
  16. ^ "Beyond the binary: Alok Vaid Menon is creating art — and safe spaces — for the gender-nonconforming community". NBC News. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  17. ^ Nichols, James Michael (March 29, 2015). "ASSEMBLAGE: Meet Queer Performance Artists Dark Matter". HuffPost. Retrieved September 22, 2023.
  18. ^ "Femme in Public (physical book)". ALOK. Archived from the original on March 20, 2020. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  19. ^ a b Levsky, Danielle (June 20, 2018). "Life as a Form of Art: Meditations on Alok Vaid-Menon and LaSaia Wade's Femme in Public". Scapi Magazine. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  20. ^ Berne, Patricia; Lewis, Jamal T.; Milbern, Stacey; Shanks, Malcolm; Vaid, Alok; Wong, Alice (2018). ""Beauty Always Recognizes Itself": A Roundtable on Sins Invalid". WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly. 46 (1–2): 241–251. doi:10.1353/wsq.2018.0002. ISSN 1934-1520. S2CID 90543100.
  21. ^ a b "Alok Vaid-Menon wants you to embrace vulnerability this Valentine's day". Document Journal. February 14, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  22. ^ "ALOK: Invisible Dog Artist-in-Residence". The Invisible Dog Art Center. February 2, 2020. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  23. ^ a b Lehner, Ace (November 11, 2019). "Trans Self-Imaging Praxis, Decolonizing Photography, and the Work of Alok Vaid-Menon". Refract: An Open Access Visual Studies Journal. 2 (1). doi:10.5070/r72145857. ISSN 2640-9429.
  24. ^ Alok V Menon on Fashion's Genderless Future | #BoFVOICES 2019, December 5, 2019, retrieved April 9, 2021
  25. ^ "Why Genderless Fashion Is the Future". The Business of Fashion. November 22, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  26. ^ a b c Vita, Anita Dolce (November 7, 2019). "Interview: Artist and Designer Alok Vaid-Menon". dapperQ | Queer Style. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  27. ^ a b "Who Is Alok Vaid-Menon – And Why Is It Important You Know Their Name?". FASHION Magazine. April 9, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  28. ^ "Opening Ceremony Spring 2019 Ready-to-Wear Fashion Show". Vogue. September 10, 2018. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  29. ^ "Studio 189 Spring 2020 Ready-to-Wear Fashion Show". Vogue. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  30. ^ "Chromat 2020 NYFW Training Session". CHROMAT. February 10, 2020. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  31. ^ Dazed (May 31, 2019). "Chella Man designs a radically inclusive collection for Opening Ceremony". Dazed. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  32. ^ Allaire, Christian (June 25, 2018). "The Faces of New York City Pride". Vogue. Photographed by Michael Bailey-Gates. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  33. ^ "La collezione di Alok contro gli stereotipi di genere". Vogue Italia (in Italian). April 10, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  34. ^ a b Jagota, Vrinda (December 24, 2017). "Alok Vaid-Menon on Building a Transfeminine Future". Vice. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  35. ^ a b Ross, Chelsea (August 28, 2018). "Alok Vaid-Menon: Femme in Public, Now". Sixty Inches From Center. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  36. ^ Liu, Crystal (July 31, 2017). "Justice, not visibility: Alok Vaid-Menon". EXBERLINER.com. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  37. ^ Hawbaker, K. T. (June 21, 2018). "Performance artist Alok Vaid-Menon on why identity categories don't work — but stories do". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  38. ^ "Alok Vaid-Menon wants you to embrace vulnerability this Valentine's day". Document Journal. February 14, 2019. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  39. ^ "Unflinchingly femme: an interview with Alok Vaid-Menon". Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  40. ^ Wortham, Jenna (November 16, 2018). "On Instagram, Seeing Between the (Gender) Lines". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  41. ^ "Femme in Public Poetry Chapbook (PDF)". ALOK. Archived from the original on March 20, 2020. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  42. ^ "Unwatchable". Rutgers University Press. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  43. ^ Vaid-Menon, Alok (2020). Beyond the Gender Binary. Penguin. ISBN 9780593094655. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  44. ^ Carmel, Julia (December 4, 2021). "Alok Vaid-Menon Finds Beauty Beyond Gender". New York Times. Retrieved December 14, 2021.
  45. ^ Herman, Alison (August 20, 2018). "Terence Nance Is Indescribable". The Ringer. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
  46. ^ Watch A Little Late with Lilly Singh Episode: Alok Vaid-Menon - NBC.com, retrieved March 27, 2021
  47. ^ 'Absolute Dominion': Netflix Martial Arts Pic Casts Désiré Mia, Fabiano Viett, Alex Winter, Patton Oswalt, Julie Ann Emery, More
  48. ^ Hailu, Selome (February 12, 2024). "Hannah Gadsby's Netflix Special 'Gender Agenda' Sets Lineup of Genderqueer Comedians: Jes Tom, Alok and More (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved February 12, 2024.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.