Some of the labels that German artist Ins A Kromminga claims for him/herself are intersex [or hermaphrodite], artist, sick, friend, idiot, furry, nerd, woman, man, expert, customer, tall, left-handed, lazy, crazy and tall. More than anything else, this undermines the importance of such labels, things that society places much weight on. As part of the annual Nigah QueerFest, Kromminga will be in Delhi, creating on-site installations and giving a presentation and talk on queer issues and its relationship to art and activism. Janice Pariat caught up with Kromminga via email for a long and interesting exchange.
You say that your art draws inspiration from your experiences as an intersex person. Could you elaborate?
When puberty hit I knew I was different from everyone else, and when the medical establishment got hold of me, they would treat me like a very odd specimen and yet never talk to me truthfully about what was going on or why I was different. If you are being lied to about your body, it is hard to even find the right questions to ask. It was 12 years after my castration (removal of my gonads) that I found out about my intersexness. [This was] just before graduate school when I received my medical records for the first time: suddenly everything fell into place and made sense. Until then, I searched for answers in a very abstract and subconscious way, [and it reflected] in my artwork. Then through the [fine arts] course [I studied at university] I found ways to utilise drawing for expressing my thought processes.
At the same time, my political awareness emerged because I quickly realised that all that had happened to me as an individual was entirely linked to cultural and social structures. The practice of drawing became a tool for me to sort and examine these complex intersections and at the same time find strategies to visualise my criticism. By then I had also become active in grassroot organisations that fight for human rights for inter, trans and queer people. This keeps shaping my views and approach, for both my work as an artist and as an activist.
Do you feel that your art is cathartic as well as political?
I guess creative expression has helped me a lot to come to terms with my own story. Working as an artist has also given me the possibility to understand how Western culture constantly reproduces its boundaries and thus creates a dichotomy that positions people as inside or outside (acceptable or unacceptable, healthy or sick). It intervenes into our most private and personal selves because we have internalised these boundaries. Therefore, I believe there is really no difference between the personal and the political.
Your drawings seem to draw a lot upon popular culture. Do you feel there is a strong connection between popular culture and the way people perceive “gender”?
Through popular culture, stereotypes can be enforced, and in terms of gender it probably works as an important factor to constantly remind us and to foster our ideas of [what kind of] behaviour is acceptable, how our bodies should function and look like, whom we must love, etc. When I saw the first X-Men movie, I became very nervous and excited because I thought this was about people like me, who are different, and yes who are mutants! But my excitement came to nothing; in the end, the gender of the mutants, aliens, misfits and protagonists is always clear-cut “boy” or “girl”.
You also work in public spaces, like putting up hermaphrodite signs on public bathrooms. Do you feel this is an extension of your art? What have people’s responses been to these gestures?
Both my activism and my work as an artist are very much connected; they influence each other. I think the lines between the function of an activist and artistic expression can be very subtle. When the toilet sticker is taken from the street and transformed into a poster within a museum, it might allow a more distinct consideration than if it hits you on your way to the loo. But it still stems from the same processes as my other works that happen to be done in more traditional media.
Irritation and confusion I book as successes. Very seldom do I get to talk to someone and explain about intersex issues and how there are no spaces for people outside the accepted genders/sexes. It is sad that we can pinpoint this problem to something so basic as public restrooms.
You have been exhibiting your works since 2000. Do you feel there is greater recognition that people cannot be branded and boxed neatly, be it sexually or otherwise?
While there have been amazing recent changes towards more rights and recognition and visibility of queer realities in India, I think our world is still caught up in the ideas of neatly separated genders and clearly differentiated bodies and sexes. Sexuality is still thought of as something that happens between a man and a woman, but if you add intersex, trans or just any queer body into this equation… hetero-, homo- or bisexuality, these categories make no sense anymore.
In terms of intersex, our issues have become more visible, but the way we are perceived is still very phobic. For example, just recently, there was the rather terrible coverage of the Olympic gold medal champion Caster Semenya. It always seems to be the strategy of marginalising us by showing us as being different from a norm. It is not seen that norms are man-made and culturally learned and it is they that have to change. Again, in terms of intersex, there is still a long way to go, because many of us are still fighting with this internalised idea of being somehow disordered compared to “normal” people. So, there is this internal and external struggle that is put on our backs, that keeps many of us from enjoying or even living our lives.
Tell us a little about the site-specific installation you are creating in Delhi.
In my current installations, I combine a large-scale wall drawing – an organic and overflowing mess of tentacle-like forms – with works on paper. The site-specific piece usually relates to the scale of the space that I can work with, and the form and level of detail is relatively spontaneous. This will also be my approach for my presentation at the QueerFest.
How many of your works will be displayed as part of the Nigah installation? Did you choose them with an Indian audience in mind?
The number of works depends on the individual installation and for me the choosing is part of the creative process on-site. Since this is my first visit to India, I am curious how my works will be perceived by an Indian audience, but I didn’t limit or streamline my selection of works [with that in mind].
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