LGBTQ+ History Month 2021: If mother knew what that word means

Written by Fagner Bibiano Alves, PhD candidate at Central Saint Martins

Trigger warning: The article uses language which may be offensive to some, and refers to sexual practices and religion.

Every time my mother sends me a text message (which normally occurs twice a week - a kind reminder I should give her a call to chat), that is the opening line. ‘Hey fag, how is it going?’, ‘Fag, my phone line does not work, in case you have tried to call’, ‘Fag, it’s your aunt’s birthday, send her a message’. She’s got a sense of humour. Unknowingly, perhaps, but it does make me laugh.

Above Video: Oi fag (2016), London, 1.46 mins.

She has absolutely no idea what ‘fag’ means

In her mind, it is short for my name Fagner. I am Brazilian-born. I come from a predominantly religious society (a mix of Catholicism with fervent American-style Protestantism) and as such, I am the product of a fundamentalist evangelical upbringing. One could infer I experienced the typical moral crusade against (homo) sexuality that such practices demand of its followers in my childhood and throughout my teens. I am an artist, too, and a ‘fag’, to quote my mother. I have been living in London for the last 20 years. I ended up here after crashing my car in an accident in São Paulo. The car was damaged beyond repair and upon receiving the insurance money, I bought a ticket to London instead of getting another car (I wanted to go to art college). It was here in London, the swinging city, that I started a life being completely ‘out’. What I mean by this is that I was ‘out’ in every aspect of my daily endeavours, at work and socially. It was here that I (devotedly) started attending ‘the scene’. Moving to London had a divine significance for me. Not that I went back to singing in choirs in the Sunday service or getting down on my knees (to pray). Here I learned heavenly rituals of a different kind.

My art practice is greatly influenced and informed by my personal, real life experiences as a gay man

I attempt to communicate and represent this through photography. I value these experiences highly due to the transcendental impact they have had on me. They are experiences I consider myself privileged to have had, even more nowadays, considering the conservative backlash caused by the fundamental advance in gay rights. We are witnessing a resurgence of populism and far-right ideals across Europe, the United States and also in Brazil. Through slowly shifting rhetoric, such ideas attempt to normalise and promote homophobic, sexist and racist paradigms. Paradigms which, in my opinion, perpetuate the tyranny of patriarchal ideologies that favour bigotry and sanction oppression against difference. Paradigms which affect the way art is disseminated in society and, more often than not, dictate which art can be looked at. Paradigms which, in the guise of conservative moralism, mask political authoritarianism.

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