Interview mit crazinisT artisT: "My work is a slow poison"

Erschienen in King Kong Magazine im Oktober 2017

It is not easy to watch the performances of Va-Bene Elikem K. Fiatsi, who is also known by his artist's name, crazinisT artisT. They are even difficult to watch online. Take, for example, myBoDyisaPrison from 2016: With his naked body covered in clay, chained to a seatless metal chair, knives in both hands, Va-Bene crawls over a stone-flagged road, breathing slowly and heavily beneath the burden. Or eAt me…, from the same year. In the pictures taken during the hours-long performance, we see the artist motionless and naked on a table, lying in his own blood, evoking images both of the Last Supper and funeral rituals in Christian iconography. Va-Bene uses his body as a medium and as a weapon, fearlessly and without compromise. By placing himself within situations of violence and torture, he exposes the vulnerability of marginalised people in his home country and condemns social and political injustice, particularly in relation to gender norms and sexuality.

These performances may be viewed as a response to the themes that have made up a big part of Va-Bene's work for years, related to the subject that informs his whole life: namely, his practice of cross-dressing. Presenting himself dressed and made up as a woman could seem rather light, even playful, by comparison, though not when you consider the impact of addressing the issues of homophobia and gender in a country where homosexuality is frequently met with brutal assaults and even imprisonment.

We meet via Skype one day, as Va-Bene is preparing to travel to Accra, the Ghanaian capital. Wandering through the space with his laptop in hand, Va-Bene shows me his studio in Kumasi, which is littered with red velvet, women’s clothing: panties, brassieres, shoes, several bags of clothes still unopened, makeup and cosmetics. “These are all costumes that I've been collecting over the past years”, he tells me, explaining how he bought some of them at second-hand clothing markets and solicits the rest from friends and colleagues on campus or asks for donations. These masses of textiles lend his studio an almost Pistoletto-like impression, but it is more than an art installation; the clothes are there to be used, to be worn. “My performance is a life-long event in terms of the trans attitude and also, let me say, the drag attitude”, he says. “I am living it over the past four, five years.

I've been living that attitude, and these are the costumes I wear on a regular basis.” In his recent solo show in Gallery1957 in Accra, Va-Bene gave insights into this practice. Rituals of Becoming comprised photography, video and live performances, showing in detail his daily procedure of washing himself, dressing up, doing his hair and applying make-up on his face that to transform his male body. Va-Bene approaches a mirror in a short, striped dress, red velvet round his head, purple lipstick, dangly earrings and several pearl necklaces: “Also, I am currently dressed in a costume,” he says, smiling.

Va-Bene, what are you going to do in Accra?

I’m participating in a series of events: In the Chale Wote Street Art Festival, I have a collaboration with a German musician and a performance artist. At the Black Star International Film Festival I will discuss my practice and narrate my life story at a panel and also do a short performance in the evening.

What kind of performance will it be?

It is going to be a shorter version of my daily dressing routine, wherein I recreate my own identity, similar to the Rituals of Becoming I showed in Gallery1957 recently.

How would you describe the current situation for artists in Ghana?

We are living in a revolutionary time in Ghana, in terms of the practice of art. Most of the younger artists are trying to shift away from conventional practice and from colonial, institutional, academic attitudes. The public is getting more and more engaged in what is happening —an artistic revolution. It is not easy for everybody, though, depending on individual art practices. Some are quite provocative, so the public either feel unsafe or perceive it as a kind of cultural pollution. For the others, it is at least a visually appealing thing the public is willing to embrace.

WHEN GHANA CONDEMNS HOMOSEXUALITY OR THE TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY… THEY ARE APPROACHING THOSE ISSUES IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY. THEY ARE NOT LOOKING AT IT FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF HUMANITY.

In your own practice, you deal a lot with religion and there are numerous references to Christian iconography. What role does the Church play in Ghanaian society?

The Christian church is very important in Ghana. Indirectly, it is the governor of the country, influencing how constitutions were originally drawn up and how current policies are being made. Most of them are installed, not because they are useful to the individual, but because they are useful to the Christian teaching. So when Ghana condemns homosexuality or the transgender community, they are not doing so because of scientific or philosophical concepts they think will benefit the individual, they are approaching those issues in relation to Christianity. They are not looking at it from the perspective of humanity.

You grew up in a very conservative Christian family and neighbourhood but eventually broke away to pursue art and to undermine those social constructs. How did you reach that point?

Well, it has been a journey. In 2010, I moved back to the art school in Kumasi where I studied painting and sculpture. After the first year of presentations and discussions, I discovered that art itself is political and can also be a tool—a weapon that can be used in any institutional or cultural revolution. I didn't know what I wanted to do at the time. Of course, I had to follow a certain academic structure, but I found a few lecturers who gave us the freedom to experiment and to explore beyond the academic conventions. I began to look at the questions that have been bothering my mind since I was a child, growing up as a Ghanaian and Togolese Christian and as a Black African. I was questioning the formation of identity and its constructiveness in terms of gender and sexuality. I began with female marginalisation, not trying to be the voice of women, but to question things that I never understood.

What things do you mean?

First, the very basic concept of female inferiority, in terms of what Ghanaian culture dictates. A lot of things have been made taboo or demonised: A man cannot have physical contact with female costumes, but it is no problem for women to wear male costumes. Men cannot even wash the panties of their sisters or mothers. I began to look further into this as it suggests that there is something provocative about the female costume. For a man, even going to the market and buying panties for a woman is perceived as an embarrassment. Females, however, are very proud and happy to show that they can buy underwear for their husbands or boyfriends. I took this as starting point. I went to the market to buy female panties—the used ones that are imported from Europe and the US—and as I was sorting through these panties alongside the women who were buying them, I observed the reactions from both the sellers and the other clients.

What kind of reactions did you cause?

Some didn’t speak but observed me with an intense gaze, wondering. You could read a question in it. Those who were bold asked, “Are you buying this for your girlfriend?” Sometimes I said “No”. Then they continued: “So what are you going to use it for?” We have very strong superstitious beliefs here about the rituals of money-making and protection, so, they believed it could be a ritual. I said: “I'm an artist. I'm going to use it for work”. With that, they were comfortable.

Really? That was probably not your intention.

When I realised that art became a safe zone to access such materials, I no longer told people that I was using it for art, because it saved me from further interrogations. Instead, I began telling people, “Yes, I'm buying it for my girlfriend”. They would answer something like, “Wow, you must love your girlfriend to come and buy this!” I kept doing this for over a year.

Did you wear the underwear you bought?

Not yet. I didn't have the courage because I have been brought up to believe this as being inferior. I had been brought up to know it was taboo for a man to do so. I was confronting my own fear whilst interrogating the responses of my audience. After one year, during which time I began making collages with the panties, I started exploring stereotypical identities. I was no longer considered a good Christian because my appearance did not tally with what a Christian is supposed to be, when I started braiding my hair and piercing my ears. For these basic things, you can easily be demonised or condemned in a Christian community of our kind. I based my arguments on these experiences that I was gaining and started looking at the third gender. By doing that I became very sensitive to the conflict between gender and sexuality.

In what way?

I was becoming very sensitive about how people began to tag me as a homosexual just because I had started to exhibit certain ‘femininities’ in my life. I began questioning what sexuality and gender were, whether they have anything in common and if they could be separate concepts that we have, over time, misinterpreted or misrepresented. I started dressing femininely and wearing make-up to push even further. I started working with cisgender heterosexuality, which both can be feminine too. Hence looking at ‘feminine’ people within the community, which we call Kodjo-besia. During my research, I found out about Andrew Solomon.

The American writer who is married to the journalist John Habich?

Yes. Going through images of their wedding, I realised that Andrew Solomon and John Habich were not playing by the rules of a gay relationship, where one must be “feminine” and the other ‘masculine’. It didn't matter that they are both masculine. I looked at that and compared it to other people, many of whom were not necessarily gay, who have been stigmatised as homosexuals in Ghana because of some degree of femininity in their appearance. This makes them vulnerable to people in the community, who think that to be gay means to be feminine and to be heterosexual means you have to be masculine. I decided to put myself through this kind of vulnerability. I assumed this position and performed it for several years: Dressing up and wearing make-up to see friends, to go anywhere. I even attend official meetings in this form. People always discuss me wherever I pass.

AS I SPEAK, I'M ALIVE, THE NEXT MOMENT, I DON'T KNOW, BECAUSE AN EXTREMIST OR SOMEONE WHO IS PROVOKED BY WHAT I DO MIGHT DO ANYTHING AT ANY TIME

What do they say?

It has largely been negative reactions. People who think they are open-minded ask positive questions, but negative is fine with me because it leads to further questions and might bring something positive in the future. I'm okay with controversies and negativities. And I'm aware of my mortality. As I speak, I'm alive, the next moment, I don't know, because an extremist or someone who is provoked by what I do might do anything at any time. My life can be taken at any time. This is how my daily performance grew. I keep pushing it further and further by transforming my studio into a form of installation, a body of work that I have to live in.

Even more controversial are the performances, in which you present yourself in chains, in clay and your own blood creating images of violence and torture…

In a conservative community, bodies that do not belong to a certain ideal are treated with violence. They are presented as though they are public meals for people to devour.

How do you conceive these performances?

Sometimes it takes me a year, or two years to develop the idea. It might look simple after it's developed but it takes me years to finalise my decision on some works. I borrow many of the images from Christian literature, like the Last Supper, which I transformed into eAt me…. In eAt me… I present my body full of blood to the public, who come to the performance with their own prejudices and then encounter a body in blood. Whether they are going to take the position of the sympathiser or whether they are going to take the position of the delinquent, I leave open. The audience should put themselves in relation to the work that I enact.

I USE EMOTIONAL SEDUCTION INSTEAD OF GOING POLITICALLY INTO THE STREET, ATTACKING PEOPLE. I SEDUCE THEM INTO RETHINKING THEIR OWN DECISION.

How did you start working with these pain and torture based performances?

My first performance dealing with pain and torture was The Crucifix, in 2014. It came as a result of my early exposure to danger, verbal attacks and abuse. Just because I braid my hair, polish my nails and polish my lips, people believe they have the right to beat me up and to tell me they would kill me. Then, I started looking at other people who have been beaten in this way. At that time, a law was passed in Uganda that allowed the death penalty for gays. I was so provoked that Uganda based this law on Christianity, to kill the gays. Jesus Christ stood up for prostitutes and all the marginalised people, but now they want to kill in his name. I asked myself what I could do, to create a dialogue.

A dialogue with whom? The public?

I am not a protester who attacks the public. Rather, I seduce the public to engage with such violence to the body. First I did a video: The Crucifix. I borrowed images from Youtube and other internet sources, copying videos of people who had been lynched and beaten to death. Then I superimposed my body over these images, in chains, inviting the audience to come to the place. Actually, you could see people coming to me, begging me to come off the chains because they could feel that I was in pain. I use emotional seduction instead of going politically into the street, attacking people. I seduce them into rethinking their own decision.

But what about the pain? How can you stand it?

When I started using pain, I realised that I could sustain it for some time. By becoming a masochist, in a sense, I was able to generate this conversation between me and my audience, where I was be interested in finding out whether they would endure or intervene. How they would try to save me from the situation. At some performances, people came by trying to take me off the chains or offering me a drink. Then, you ask yourself: "Why couldn't you have done this to the people they were lynching?"

What was your most recent performance of this kind?

It was at the Museum of Science and Technology in Accra. I locked myself with chains into a metal chair with spikes and sat there for some hour.

What was the occasion?

It was an end-of-year exhibition by the KNUST (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology) department of Painting and Sculpture.

COMING MEANS THAT THE PERSON IS PREPARED TO CONFRONT WHATEVER I'LL PRESENT. AND WHETHER HE OR SHE IS GOING TO WEEP OR BREAK DOWN IS A DECISION THEY HAVE ALREADY MADE BEFORE COMING.

Does it make a big difference if people already know you and come to a solo show, as opposed to if you show your work in a group exhibition? The reactions must be stronger when the audience doesn’t come prepared.

I think some couldn't even withstand it. They couldn't stand seeing me suffering. Some later confessed how they wept. They were moving from work to work, enjoying paintings, videos, sculptures and then all of a sudden they met a live body bent down in pain. They couldn't hold their emotions any longer. When it's my solo show, they are prepared for anything. Those who think they could not withstand it do not come. Coming means that the person is prepared to confront whatever I'll present. And whether he or she is going to weep or break down is a decision they have already made before coming.

How is it when you perform in public spaces?

I only recently started performing in enclosed or group exhibitions, in pain. In Togo, I have enacted three performances in public spaces, one in collaboration with an anthropologist. In Ghana, I performed Crucifix Crises at the lakeside on a picnic day and Pieta in front of the bible house where important bibles are sold in Accra.

How do you choose the public spaces for your performances?

In most cases, I don't have a specific target audience but it depends on the content I want to present and the kind of message I hope my work can disseminate. So Letter to the Church, as the title suggests, was a work attacking or questioning the church, hence why I presented it in a church. I do these performances only when I think that the space is important. Sometimes, I also try to invade certain gatherings. I did rethinking na-za in a procession during a festival in the water region. I had to negotiate with the chief of the region before, submit my images, explain that I was interested in staging a performance in the festival and attend series of meetings with them but, in the end, they gave me permission. During this performance, I was in chains, nude, walking through the city for about three hours. I think it was one of the most groundbreaking performances I've done because of the kind of festival I invaded with my performance.

Isn’t it very dangerous for you to present yourself like this in public spaces?

It is and I am always aware of this. So one thing I do say whenever I'm doing public performance is that if I come back alive, then I can perform again. Or it is my last performance, because the day I die is my last performance.

Why do you do take that risk? Do you think you can change anything in Ghana with your performances? Or in the world?

My work alone probably cannot change the world, but I do believe that art has to be political. Somehow, some way, people will begin to rethink certain conditions and it will have an effect on policies in the future. It could also happen in a negative way. If the government decides to ban performance in Ghana because of my work, that would be a negative outcome for people of our kind. But then! I hope that because of the level of democracy and the level of global democratic policies that are coming on board, the country cannot claim power to ban certain things in our country. I think that my work is a slow poison. It is eating the society and eating the individual and eating the people, little by little. There are some young artists who would like to perform like me, who would like to take challenges, who would like to take the risk, who would like to let go of their life. So if we get one, two, three, four, then I think something is happening.

How important are audiences outside Ghana for your work?

After 2014, I started looking at audiences outside Ghana. Triggered especially when I did an event in Uganda. I was concerned about audiences who can use my image as a weapon to fight for their own rights. I became interested in the external audience through social media and through the internet. Even though the majority of my works have been enacted here, I think I've also gained audiences outside Ghana. It's important to establish that what I'm doing is revealing the very place where they are suffering. I hope I give some of them hope that it's not the world that is rejecting them. It's a particular space that is rejecting them. So they can negotiate their own life, and they can negotiate their own freedom.

And outside Africa?

I also think of audiences from the West, because Africa itself has been misrepresented many times in Western media and theory. I also hope that the West, or audiences from other parts of Africa, would gain insight into Ghanaian struggles for freedom. What freedom we seek is not the same freedom other Africans might be seeking. Surprisingly, some cultures are much better off with their oppressions because they believe it is part of their life. Fighting it, or having an external person fighting it, does not make sense to them. They feel privileged, not oppressed. This is how some people think about their conditions. Transgender people in Ghana, and some parts of Africa, have been taught to believe that there are spirits attacking them, so they seek deliverance from a priest. They confess. You can understand that this person does not want to fight for liberation in terms of sexuality or gender orientation because they think it’s an abnormal condition. So if you come as an external person, trying to fight for her, you are perceived as the demon that is going to promote her downfall.

IF THERE'S SOMETHING I BORROWED FROM MY PREVIOUS CHRISTIAN LIFE, IT IS THIS SAYING THAT YOU SHOULD BE CRAZY FOR CHRIST OR CRAZY FOR GOD, SO YOU CAN DO ANYTHING FOR THE SAKE OF GOD. I TRANSFERRED THAT KNOWLEDGE TO BEING CRAZY FOR ART.

This is how they see you – as a demon? Is the name “crazinisT artisT” you gave yourself a reaction to it?

The name refers back to the beginning of my artistic practice. In 2010, when I was doing my undergraduate program, I fell in love with art, even though I didn't know what I would be doing in the future. I started giving all my passion to the work. And if there's something I borrowed from my previous Christian life, it is this saying that you should be crazy for Christ or crazy for God, so you can do anything for the sake of God. I transferred that knowledge to being crazy for art. At the time, I was painting, I was collaging, I wasn't yet performing but I was crazy for art. I wanted to put all my energy into it. That is how the name came up. I named myself “crazinisT artisT” before I even started doing performances that people might consider as crazy.

And why this special way of spelling, the two capital T at the end of the words?

Some years back, when people started questioning me about my name and were misinterpreting the meaning of being mad, I told them that my name was corrupted and cannot be taken as literally as you hear it. Even to me, the name expanded beyond my understanding in this way. I started to look at the name from the reverse, by making the T at the end a capital. I added “artisT” to the name because, no matter what you are doing, even groundbreaking things, until a certain institution names you an artist, you are not seen as one. That is why I decided to make it a name. I wanted to be crazy for art, so I didn't need authentication from anybody to be an artist. It was my decision to be an artist.