RAVEENA: Our existence as queer creatives of colour in the diaspora is complex. How do we navigate our privileges living in an unceded country we and our families have settled upon, while accessing resources and care for our creativity that is more than often denied? How we experience the world and art is what gives us community, and finding kinship with each other on this dusri zameen enables us to explore and capture our own worth as creatives.

This photo series pays homage to us living on a different ground to which our ancestors lived on, and settling on the ancestral lands of Indigenous People of Gadigal, Dharug and Dharawal Nations. dusri zameen captures the beauty and duality of queer South Asians on Country, from performers and curators to musicians and writers. It examines where they first rooted their creativity in so-called Sydney, and how their artistry informs their selfhood as queer brown people in industries we are slowly and significantly forging our creativity and existence into.

VARUNA: This place which is the ACE (Arts and Cultural Exchange) building…it holds a lot for me in the sense that it was the first time that I was able to tap into my creativity and explore sexuality and brownness without feeling like there was anything attached to it, like it wasn't like a mark, it wasn't for anyone else. It was me purely just exploring where my mind and where my heart let me. And from that it just sprouted like all of these thoughts that I didn’t realise I had, all these desires I didn’t realise [sic.] I had and also like it brought to me like opportunities that I wasn't looking for but I really kind of grew into. This building and this place for me is very much like the bud of all of that. ACE building was kind of where I started to feel a little bit more unrestricted and felt like I had the liberty to write about those things, yeah, because there weren’t any expectations, it was questions, like you know, ‘why are you writing about this? what made you feel this way?’ and then like getting to explore that was really special.

TEXTAQUEEN: My relationship to 4A is a new relationship, in that, I’ve never really thought of it as my space before, cos I’ve really, mostly, seen East Asian stuff. But through having this exhibition, I’ve found a connection to the space to be able to show the work that I’ve been able to be showing, which is about queer and trans South Asians, and it be in a gallery that, you know, that’s the target of the people coming in, is South Asians - maybe not queer and trans, necessarily, but, yeah. I guess that part of it has been a really special experience when I’ve shown in so many institutions where the target is not the people that I’m drawing in the work. So, yeah, I guess that’s my connection to this place. I mean, it’s still an institution, but I think through having the exhibition here, and my main experience of the space being part of activating it for my art of other queer and trans South Asians, and the public program bringing all these queer and trans South Asians together to perform in, for the time of this exhibition at least it really feels like a little bit of diasporic home (laughs).

SHYAMLA: My relationship to this place is that Dharawal Country is where I was raised, and it's also the place, specifically so-called Cronulla, is where I learned to dance. So every week I would take dance class in Cronulla and learn tap, ballet and jazz from the age of four. Originally I was learning in Oyster Bay, also in Dharawal Country, and then I moved to learning in Cronulla.

When I came out this year, the universe worked in such a way that the place I was able to find that was available for me for short term rent was actually right in Cronulla, right around the corner from the place where I used to learn dance. However what is now on that land is a barber shop that I frequent and now get my hair cut. So I literally get my hair cut on the land where I used to learn how to dance. So it’s a very special moment for me to be practising Silambam by the sea because my father’s from Chennai, mother is from Andhra Pradesh. Both from coastal places, and my mum's from Andhra ancestrally, but grew up in Fiji, so I'm very connected to saltwater so when I practise on the sand and I look out at the salt water in the ocean I think of both my ancestors as well as the Dharawal ancestors of that land and try to remember my ancestors and call on them and also pay my respects to the traditional custodians of the land and acknowledge all the suffering and loss that has happened that’s led to me standing on that Country. So I think of all of that when I practise the Silambam on Dharawal Country.

UDARAVI: I feel like my connection to my community needs to be really personal, in the concept of living in Elizabeth Bay. I feel like I need to— not need to, I’m not as imbued in community at the moment because I really just want to know how to provide an outcome that is not married to the fact that I am brown or queer or anything like that. Like I am good at what I do (laughs). And that’s my priority at the moment. Yes, there’s not many people of colour that live around here, there’s not that many queer people of colour that live around here. But living here came by chance. I think I rediscovered a sense of self, and I don’t think that’s necessarily married to the idea of just being around here. It was very much for myself, and my objective is just to be able to build and create a sustainable career for artists. And I think if I’m able to deliver that…that is my objective right now. I feel like when those two things of the personal relationship and the amount of searching that I could’ve done when I was younger— you feel like your sense of community is attached to only what you can provide your community, in terms of what you can do for them. Whereas If you can silo them, then you know that you’re good at something and you can provide something if need be but you can also just be, as I am, as a brown person, as a queer person, in those spaces, not attached to what I do in my practice at all — and that’s been the most important thing, if anything.

Honestly, I don’t think that I’ve ever felt connected to any spaces at all, and I think that exists by virtue of being an immigrant. I know that there are other folks that have lived in other really beautiful diverse pockets around Sydney, around Brisbane, around Melbourne and there was some sense of familiarity to where they were growing up. I’ve moved around a lot of times in my life. I grew up in central Queensland and it’s quite difficult to be like, ‘a space informs my creative practice’ or anything like that. Because really as immigrants, there’s not that much history to a space. I think when spaces are so impermanent you really do have to find a sense of home within yourself. It’s not like I chose Elizabeth Bay - I just really needed some time to figure out my home within myself. I kind of feel like it is just hard to feel like there are so many memories here because it’s just, for me, who’s moved around a lot and things have been quite impermanent and transient — yeah, there’s definitely spaces when I was younger — but the way that they’ve informed what I do now is a very internal process.

KAVITHA: The Sydney Murugan Temple was a cultural hub for my community, the Sri Lankan Tamil community of Western Sydney. I just remember walking in as a child and seeing all these aunties in their colourful saris, their beautiful jewellery, their makeup and the jasmine in their hair. And it was looking at my mother and those aunties that I realised who I am, and who I wasn’t allowed to be. And so the Sydney Murugan Temple  is a huge part of me realising my own transness and my womanhood.

Moving to Canberra to explore my gender identity and embark on my transition, I felt this rip between myself and my culture, and my cultural background. So something I try to do in my art, is I always try to draw that connection between my culture and my gender expression on stage. So that’s why the Sydney Murugan Temple  is so connected to my brownness, my queerness and my art.

That was my first time wearing a sari to the temple. I actually thought I would never be able to go back to the temple after my transition, and I went back as myself, in a sari, which was exactly why I felt so connected to the temple in the first place. And so it was absolutely amazing, and it’s been such a huge milestone for me, so thank you very much for this opportunity.

(rooster crow)

ARUNDATI: Being in this place that I grew up in, just anything that makes me feel tied to my childhood or nostalgic feels really safe because play and feeling like a child is so important to me, especially with my creativity. It makes me feel so…just reminds me of how excited I am to make things or make stories out of things. It’s kind of overwhelming in a good way to think about how rich my culture is when it comes to music and art, like every form of art like filmmaking, dance, poetry. It's so amazing that there's so much influence.

In terms of queerness, I think that's opened up in me more recently and I think when I was younger, if we’re talking just like sexuality, it was something I always knew— it was there pretty early on and I was like comfortable with it and I didn’t really think about it. I don't think I had the tools or the community around me to reinforce that or help me understand what it was. I started drawing a lot more connections to my heritage because there's so much history of queerness in our culture and it felt really, really important to me so when I think about queerness, I also think about my ancestors and I see that quality, and I think of people in my family. It feels really comforting and it makes me feel even more tired to all the women in my family.