Big Fat Light Merqueer

About

Goldendean invites you to a tender moment with a “soft radical” – to catch breath, bubbles and feelings. To be tender, to take space, be vulnerable and risk visibility – in performance, and as large scale inflatable sculptures.   As a “Fat Queer White Trans body” in the context of South Africa, artist Dean Hutton questions who or what is entitled to take up space. In doing so, they address the personal and political of hypervisibility: being visible (as a fat, queer, white, trans body) and invisible, unimportant at the same time (as a fat, queer, white, trans body).  

The ‘Big Fat Light MerQueer’, is a hybrid between human and sea monster that seems to have crawled out of the water – with tentacles. They drew inspiration from folktales of merfolk like the ‘Mermaid of Edam’ and ‘Mamlambo’, a river goddess with a snakelike appearance from South African and Xhosa mythology, but who is often depicted as a mermaid. When caught, they are said to bring prosperity.

Goldendean shares moments of soft courage to affirm the right of all bodies to exist, to be celebrated and protected – to invoke those tender feelings through deliberate acts of remaining silly and playful, sometimes a clown, sometimes a warrior, always vulnerable… Radically soft in an uncompromising world… A tenderqueer investing trust in an audience to respond in kindness, to let our bodies be safe together, to queer space no matter the way we sometimes fail each other.