Del LaGrace Volcano speaks at Arnolfini

For four decades, the genderqueer, intersex visual artist, activist and educator Del LaGrace Volcano has been making work that documents and archives LGBTQI+ culture, particularly in San Fransisco and London. They will be appearing at Arnolfini on March 10 with a talk called Beyond the Buzzwords.

The event has been organised in collaboration with the School of Art & Design’s Visual Culture Research Group, and Social Sciences Research Group, at UWE Bristol. It will be introduced by UWE’s Dr Finn Mackay, Senior Lecturer in Sociology.

Born with XX, XY and XO chromosomes, Del explains they are what’s called “a chimera – a mosaic. The latest theory on me is that I was a twin at birth and my body absorbed some of the tissues of my XY twin who didn’t make it. So even though I’m trans in the sense that I used to be perceived as female and now I’m perceived as male, neither of those are correct. So you could say that my biological sex is intersex. My gender is non binary. And my sexual orientation is pansexual”.

Now living in Sweden and a decade into parenthood, they are still making work that crosses multiple disciplinary boundaries in photography, painting, sculture and craft – currently focusing on a new project called Playing with Fire, Memory and Magic that, as ever, names people and places “so that no one is ever a nameless model” in Del’s work.

The spark for communicating was awakened in early childhood: “I have known for 60 years at least that the world was a dangerous place, especially for those of us assigned female at birth, and that most people didn’t have the ability to say so”.

Raised by a feminist progressive leftist mother, Del was going on civil rights marches in California in the ‘60s. “I have photographs of myself at three years old looking completely fierce, in big Elton John sunglasses and rollerskates,” they recall. “I haven’t changed much”.

Debbie Wood, 1960 Santa Maria, California (Del aged three years) – photo: Del La Grace Volcano

Always unafraid to speak their truth, they were able to harness their natural talent for photography as a “visual voice” to convey not only their own experience, but thousands of people they have photographed since. “I’m kind of like an ambassador,” they say, “and I know that my work has functioned like that.

“I’ve had a lot of feedback from people that makes me cry, because that’s exactly why I do it: so I can have a positive impact on people’s lives who only get negativity from friends, family or their culture about who they are, and are forced either to hide who they are or suppress themselves in some way.”

In an illustrious career as an artist to date, they have produced five photographic monographs: Love Bites (1991), The Drag King Book with Jack Halberstam (1999), Sublime Mutations (2000), Sex Works with Beatriz Preciado (2005) and Femmes of Power: Exploding Queer Femininities with Ulrika Dahl (2008).

Del LaGrace Volcano Bluebeard – photo: Del LaGrace Volcano

Internationally renowned for their photography and performance, they are also in high demand as a speaker, and as an artist producing radical queer interventions into mainstream society.

Del’s upcoming Beyond the Buzzwords talk will explore the term of ‘intersectionality’, why it is important, and why, perhaps, it has lost its power of late. The title was carefully chosen in the hope it might encourage a diverse audience to attend:

“What I’m hoping for is a very mixed audience in all different ways,” they say. “I’m hoping that there will be people who are not already engaged in the topics that I’ll be talking about, and that people will come to hopefully expand their concept of what queer work brings to the wider public.”

Del first used the term ‘part-time gender terrorist’ as a way, they say, of getting people’s attention following an incident 20 years ago where they were detained by customs at Stansted Airport under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Del La Grace Volcano portrait – photo: De LaGrace Volcano

They had short hair, makeup and a beard, and were dressed in fishnet stockings, platform boots, a miniskirt, waistcoat and feather boa; the explanation from customs officials at the time was that they were “terrifying small children”.

Happily, this has not been a repeat incident; Del has moved through British customs thousands of times without incident, but does occasionally ask officials for their policy on working with people whose appearance physically does not conform to what’s written on their passport. “I’ve given them free training,” they smile.

“I have many boxes that I move between. I’m a parent; I’m a cultural producer; I’m out about all the things that I am – intersex, queer, trans, pansexual. There’s many different ways that I could describe myself. All are part of my identity. None of them define me.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CTSGjofo87m/

For Del, as an artist who has documented the changing culture over the last 40 years, and now also a parent, despite the deeply embedded transphobia that is still so embedded in so much of society, there is clear progression for LGBTQ+ communities.

But they are aware their personal lived experience is not representative for all: “The fact that I can move through the world openly as a gender non-conforming, non binary, intersex, queer, transmasculine person, and a parent called MaPa, is a function of the many privileges I enjoy as a white, able-bodied, educated person living in one of the most progressive countries in the world”.

”I am fortunate to live in a country that not only supports me as an artist, but the systems that support me as a parent,” they continue.

“Both of my children are identifying as non binary, and we are supported in that. So it is hard for me not to feel like there’s a lot of progress because we’re living this experience, and the kids are valued members of their peer groups – it’s not a big deal.”

Del has been engaged in intersex activism for 25 years, making films such as Journey Intersex (Channel 4) which followed their cousin’s story, as well as their own.

They are also dedicated to using their platform to raise awareness of the protocol for so-called ‘genital ambiguity’ in newborn babies, and the potentially damaging impacts of surgery performed on intersex babies that may be raised as one sex, or another, either getting the message that “your body is wrong” or in some cases, growing up without knowing the truth about their biological sex at all.

For Del, their calling is to use their voice to speak up with positivity and power, for those who have grown up with a fear of not belonging. “The need to belong is what motivates everybody, and the fear of not belonging is what created conformity. The system that requires us to comply, and stepping outside of that can be very scary. So being a chronic outsider such as myself is also very powerful.

“And this is what I say to tolerance. I am not about to allow myself to be tolerated. Instead I want my body of work to be celebrated, admired and respected, not in an egotistical way and not for me; but also, yes, for me too, as an individual person.”

Inter* me – photo: Del LaGrace Volcano

Ahead of Del LaGrace Volcano’s presentation at Arnolfini, the evening will also feature a new performance work called Deuce 2, devised by Rachael Miles and Tom Marshman, exploring the LGBTQ experience of growing up in the ‘80s: “Using pop cultural references to unpick historical representations of gender non-conformity, they reconsider the role the iconic has played in defining contemporary ‘queer’ identities”.

Ending our wide-ranging conversation with the warmth that has characterised them throughout, Del reaffirms their hopes for the upcoming evening at Arnolfini. “I would like people that are outside the outsider communities to come,” they conclude. “I’m passionate but I’m not didactic. I want to engage with people. And I’m also quite funny, I think.”

Del LaGrace Volcano: Beyond The Buzzwords is at Arnolfini, 16 Narrow Quay, Bristol, BS1 4QA on March 10 at 6.30-10pm. Tickets are available via www.headfirstbristol.co.uk.

Main photo: Del LaGrace Volcano/Gerard Rancinan

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