Staging [in]visible subjects: Blackqueer bodies, social death and performance

Staging [In]visible Subjects: BlackQueer Bodies, Social Death and Performance is an examination of the ways in which death and violence operate within the lives of black/queer youth. Black/queer youth experience marginalization across several dimensions of difference (i.e. race, class, sexuality, gender, etc). Proximity from white, male, middle class, heteronormative acceptability places these youth particularly vulnerable to violence and death. Moreover, the ubiquitous nature of white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia, and capitalism normalize the degradation and devaluation of black/queer bodies, lives, stories, and experience. This degradation often materializes in the absence of black/queer narratives and experiences. Whereas, black/queer bodies are not seen as central to black politics, cultural life and struggles, and neither are they central to current articulations of queer politics, cultural life, and struggle. The systematic premature and preventable death experienced by black/queer youth demands an expansion of current conceptualization of those who are the most vulnerable among us. Through an intersectional analysis informed by Black queer theory, Performance theory, and Black feminist theory this project explores the possibility of utilizing personal narrative and art—namely poetry and theatre—to not only understand violence operates within the lives of black/queer youth, but to reinsert their narratives and experiences back into our cultural memory and political liberatory movements and strategies