Screening
LADA Screens: George Chakravarthi
12 Dec 2018
Event times
7pm- 9pm
Cost of entry
Free
Address
- The Garrett Centre
- 117A Mansford Street
- London
England - E2 6LX
- United Kingdom
Offering representation of the different investments in femininities embodied by transvestites and cross-dressers, the pleasures, fears and dangers of being in public ‘en femme’ and the particular dialectic relationship they have with the heterosexual male.
About
For December’s LADA Screens George Chakravarthi will present a single screen video of Barflies (2002). Originally a three-screen installation, the work which is performed by Chakravarthi offers representations of the different investments in femininities embodied by transvestites and cross-dressers, the pleasures, fears and dangers of being in public ‘en femme’ and the particular dialectic relationship they have with the heterosexual male.
This version of the work will be launched and screened at LADA where Chakravarthi will give a presentation about their work followed by a discussion with Alex Eisenberg (LADA).
About Barflies
The different styles of Maureen, Claire and Jasmine signify some of the variations found within feminine identities in the transvestite/cross-dressing communities. Barfliesalso highlights the specificity of TV/cross-dressers in relation to public, social spaces. Many women ‘born female’ do not feel comfortable alone in bars because of the threat of unwanted attention from heterosexual men. Being out in a social space such as a bar for most TV/cross-dressers is often celebrated as a triumph, where a mixture of fear and delight may be experienced through a public expression of one’s female self.
Recorded on telephone chat-lines, the soundtrack offers an intimate undercurrent to the unedited footage. Transvestites, transsexuals, cross-dressers and their seekers engage in conversations which interlace the private, confessional and sexual.
Barflies has been screened at Site Gallery (Sheffield, 2002), Tate Modern (London, 2006) and was screened most recently for LADA’s Just Like A Woman programme for the City of Women Festival (Slovenia, 2013).
George Chakravarthi’s artistic practice spans over a decade of live performance, video installation and photography. Predominantly engaging with the politics of identity and representations of the self, the works often cross and renegotiate the restrictions of space, culture and heritage.
A limited edition print derived from Barflies (2002) is available to buy on Unbound.
