Jessica

Jessica is studying to be a paralegal and in an all girl trans band called Amuba

Jessica II

Jessica sometimes plays the role of housewife that her long term partner who is married to a ciswoman

Mama Rouly

Mama Rouly now relies on busking for most of her income.

Under the Bridge

The waria walk a 2km stretch of street food spots, dancing to the tunes of a bluetooth speaker, for coins.

Sli

The older waria are especially vulnerable and dependent on the community for support. Sli lives among five other waria on the edge of the city.

Chandra

Chandra carries a sharpened tool the size of a pencil with her as a means of self-defense, recounting the time, a man forced himself on her in a darkened alley.

Ines

Ines is an activist who was targeted many times by the police so has had to crop her hair short and dress like a man by day for her daily employment.

Waria Mama Vinolya with Baby C Amisha Patel.jpg

Wudu

Performing wudu, the Islamic procedure for cleansing parts of the body, a type of ritual purification, or ablution, before joining the other waria in prayer. Wudu consists of washing the face, arms, wiping the head and finally washing the feet with water.

Call to Prayer

Mama Sinta started the first Islamic school for waria Al-Fatah Pesantran in her home. The waria meet weekly for lessons in the Qur’an, dinner, and prayer.

Chandra dances at an Indonesian national day celebration at the Catholic mission in Yogyakarta.

Stand Firm, Stand Here November 2019 Ohklahomo, Chicago Group exhibition

‘Stand Firm, Stand Here’ features 9 artists from Turkey, the Phillipines, Palestine, South Korea, India, Bangladesh and Iran, who address how non-western artists and their subjects must claim space when cultural and gender identity becomes a gateway to subjugation, violence, exploitation, and mis-translation. Distanced from places that identified as 'home', these artists have identities that are evolving in the West while their practices are rooted in non-western epistemologies. Here, notions of gender, race, 'progress', ethnicity, class, religion, geography, ability and age all stand to be contested by other ways of knowing.