Foreword

Like the people in these photographs, I am myself a queer person living in a land far away from where I first started. Originally raised between various countries in the Middle East, I now live in London, and identify as gay, non-binary and Muslim. Inhabiting identities that are at their heart intersectional and straddling various social groups, I know what it is like to live in the in-between. Of feeling a hunger to be accepted, but a fight not to be assimilated; of revelling in the potency of living on society’s fringes, whilst also yearning for social visibility; of coming from a background that was intolerant of my queerness, yet entering a country that is dismissive of my racial identity and heritage. It is, in effect, like living forever on a tectonic fault line at constant risk of an earthquake, of feeling as if you’re flying on a plane that might never land. The tension is both chaotic and empowering – for whilst existing in a liminal monad between various social spaces is tiring, it’s also the place with all the potential. It exists outside defined social binaries, powerfully disrupting heteronormative structures, fragmenting an oppressive gaze in a way that can liberate ourselves from damaging narratives.

Samet Durgun’s powerful photography honours the potential of the in-between, celebrating its boundlessness in a way which situates queer refugees and asylum seekers within their own space, into which we are invited to observe – never claim. The tensions between visibility and invisibility are potent in this respect, with Durgun using light to articulate this interplay to spectacular success. Take, for instance, Reflection in Museum Island (p. 75), where the shadows of the individuals stand ghostly in the brightly lit water of the fountain spray (the people in question have their faces concealed). The image articulates the feeling of many queer refugees and asylum seekers who exist in the shadows; both due to social marginalisation, but also out of a desired exemption from the social gaze, whether for safety or the will to find one’s own community. In this image, we the viewer are denied the access of gaze – instead, as the artist writes of his photography, we are just ‘listening.’

A personal favourite in the collection is Backyard Flourish I (p. 123), where the belly dancer’s performance is being enjoyed by their community – though their body is visible to us, their head is cropped out from inside the building. Again, this community exists in its own space, in a way that is empoweringly inaccessible to us. Their identities are their own, to be celebrated on their own terms, not to be consumed by an objective onlooker. The celebration is in full swing without us – we are just lucky to have stumbled upon it, momentarily.

Yet, whilst there are several examples of people who stay in sight – but out of view – this collection is also a celebration of the power and resilience of these communities. Some of the most captivating images are those where the individuals almost consume the light, taking up the space of the image, defiantly possessing the photographic medium. Keil Li in the Changing Room (p. 53), Elina in the Changing Room (p. 48) and Malaysian Dancer (p. 47), are some of the most embodied images of the collection. Every inch of the light is inhabited by those posing – they forcibly tell us that their identities are valid and visible, and that they belong here just as much as anybody else. They are each resplendent in their gender nonconformity, and they refuse to be hidden. As a gender nonconforming person myself, these images were particularly affecting for me – the sumptuous celebration of one’s own identities and on one’s own terms is a defiant act of resistance. Malaysian Dancer is an uncompromising celebration in this respect, with the individual celebrating both their queer identity and their Malaysian heritage – they do not live in conflict with each other, but in harmonious magic, creating an intersectional piece of visual poetry.

It is the fight between social marginalisation and social affirmation that makes this collection such an exciting body of work. As the viewer, you are never in one definite state – there is the feeling that the energy is always shifting, from the shadows into the light, from the city into the suburbs, from invisibility to visibility, from emptiness to abundant space. As such, reducing the works to a simple narrative would bely the complexity of the identities being portrayed; identities that are full of contradiction and conflict, hope and tribulation, melancholy and joy – and always defiance. But it is this complexity that is at the heart of intersectional experiences of identity; rightly so, this collection offers no narrated judgement on the lives it represents. Instead, it is a breathing, tangible organism of lives on the constant verge of becoming.

About Amrou Al-Kadhi

Amrou Al-Kadhi is a British-Iraqi writer, filmmaker and drag performer, known on stage as Glamrou. Their memoir, Life as a Unicorn, was published by HarperCollins and won the Polari First Book Prize and a Somerset Maugham Award. Their screenwriting credits include co-writing the first-season finale of Apple TV+’s Little America with Stephen Dunn and writing an episode of BBC America’s The Watch. Their debut feature, Layla, premiered in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Across writing, film and performance, their work explores queer identity, belonging and self-expression. Full biography, United Agents