Queer Identity and Art as a Survival Strategy

Written by: Jovana Ivetić

When identity is marginalized, art can become a way to articulate what doesn’t fit the mold, that is, what the system and society don’t acknowledge. But can it completely eliminate pain, shame, fear, and ecstasy? Is queer aesthetics measured in rainbow colors and abstract symbols; or is it the experience of a body that has learned to be viewed with suspicion, and now finally feels pride and courage?

Works of art reflect a time period, context, and stage in the artist's life, so art has, throughout the centuries, enabled the preservation of both collective and personal identity, providing a vital platform for self-expression, community building, and social change.

Writing as healing

Literature boldly articulates what society seeks to silence, making sentences and verses resistance, and metaphors an attempt to explain what is not yet safe to say out loud. That is why, where queer identities are silenced or pathologized, writing becomes a way to organize internal chaos - what is unspeakable in the environment becomes readable through literature, i.e. paper takes on what society refuses to listen to. Does this mean that literary form can be neutral, or that it carries with it a deep intimacy?

The writer Mihaela Šumić explains that the writing process implies a synthesis of personal emotional experience, social context and political awareness:

"Without that, the text is not alive, the characters are not psychologically convincing and they lack the multi-layered and multi-meaning that characterize real people and real relationships. What writing brings to an individual is again a matter of personal intentions, sensibility and the unconscious, that is, the subconscious within each of us, with the fact that I believe that good literature is far from personal intention, and closer to the primordial need to question and discover universal truth. Myths and stories from ancient times are also today they replicate in many different ways, but their essence remains the same, which clearly indicates to us how certain personal, social and political problems are rooted in our nature, and only the way in which they are processed changes with time."

As he further states, what is characteristic of some of the best literary works is precisely their questioning nature, because the author is not there to teach, to tell his truth or his side of the story, but rather to question both collective and personal beliefs through the text, searching for some universal conclusion:

"Many writers who primarily criticized one ideology and government, later did so with other ideologies and governments, precisely because, although we as individuals are often inclined to one, the text itself requires that it not be biased and colored by superficial interpretations. Therefore, literature is both a therapeutic and political act, but not because the author decided so, but because without it it would not be literature."

Mihaela Šumić - by Tajana Dedić Starović

So, if literature has a task to question, then we can conclude that queer literature is perhaps its most radical expression – because it questions the very structure of identity: sex, gender and belonging. However, while authors generally search for universal meanings, queer authors also search for their own existence. That is, writing becomes a process of composing an identity that is torn apart from the outside. This process is two-way: healing towards the inside, political towards the outside. And this is not because writers are trying to achieve healing, but because this is often the only space in which the truth can be whole. For the system seeks forgetting: forgetting violence and discomfort, and forgetting the existence of those who do not belong to the norm. And literature whitens. It remembers.

Visual art - a mirror that does not censor

An exhibition in a gallery or a performance in a concert hall, but also a mural on a wall and a digital work posted on a social network - all of these are gestures of appropriation and disclosure. In environments where queer bodies are often repressed, art becomes a way to bring the body back to the center. The space in which the work is exhibited becomes as important as the work itself; because when queer artists bring their aesthetics into public spaces, they demonstrate existence. Therein lies the political power of creation: in a presence that does not apologize and in a symbolism that does not lend itself to simple interpretations. And, again, there is no aesthetic coincidence - form in queer art is a conscious rejection of norms.

However, art does not always necessarily depict who we are, but the version of us that we want to become; and can flirt between what we are and what we are expected to be. The Sarajevo artist and activist, who created the beloved character Nikotina, explained to us how an artistic alter ego can achieve freedom of identity expression:

"The artistic alter ego often exists somewhere between who we are and what is expected of us. Through it, a person can question, express or even exaggerate parts of their identity without direct exposure. Sometimes it's easier to tell the truth when you know it's not you on stage, but someone you've created. That distance gives you the confidence to show what you normally keep to yourself. In the drag world, this is especially evident. Through my colleagues, I can best see how much power these alter egos have - although many of them are already expressed and brave personalities and outside of makeup and wigs, the transformation gives them an extra kind of courage and protection. For many, it's an opportunity to express themselves without fear - because it's not them, but the character. And that character often knows more of the truth than we would say in our name."

Not the target, not the explanation - but the person

The law does not yet see the queer person, but art is there to strip and reassemble. Every drawing, word or movement is not just creativity, but proof of existence, without legal permission, but with full right. For many queer people, art is the first security, the first truth and the first home.

“Art gave me autonomy: a space where no one sets my boundaries. It taught me my unique language, the one that everyone has, no matter how much it needs to be unlocked first: the language of color, silence, and movement, the one that no one can take away. It gave me the confidence to wear my wounds as jewelry. But above all, it opened the door to my true self, that infinitely calm yet powerful inner voice,” says Abi, a painter and co-founder of the informal art collective Mahalom duginih boja.

Abi's painting, private archive

Ultimately, art carries a collective weight - one person's artwork also depicts the experience of others. In this circulation of pain and resistance, a new kind of closeness is found. No representation is lonely when it resonates in another's body. More than just survival, queer art is also celebration - a way of saying: we survived, now we celebrate!

This article was published with the support of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The content of the article is the sole responsibility of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Tuzla Open Centre or the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade or the Irish Government.