OutRage: Latoya Rule and Dominic Guerrera

OutRage

OutRage is a photo series that celebrates being Blak and queer. It captures continued resistance, survival and community love that recalls the excitement of being out and raging. This occurs alongside being outraged during two global pandemics across 2020: Covid-19 and ongoing state violence against racialised bodies.

Q&A with BEXX DJENTUH-DAVIS Words and Images: LATOYA AROHA RULE & DOMINIC GUERRERA

utRage

Violet Buckskin (She/Her), Aboriginal Nation: Narungga, Ngarrindjeri and Kaurna

Throughout the pandemic and the lockdowns occurring across 2020, Drummond Street and I (Bexx Djentuh-Davis) had the privilege of providing project support and funding to two people whose community and advocacy work we admire. Latoya Aroha Rule (they/ them), a Wiradjuri/Māori person, and Dominic Guerrera (he/him), a Kaurna, Ngarrindjeri and Italian person, both led and produced OutRage, a photographic series representing local south australian Aboriginal LGBTQ+ people outside their homes, ready to emerge from lockdown and celebrate again. I sat down with Latoya and Dominic and asked a few questions about their project.

Simone Miller (She/Her), Aboriginal Nation: Mirning/Wongatha

BEXX: I’m so excited to talk to you both. Can you tell me how OutRage started?

LATOYA: I saw your post on social media about some funding that was available for community projects through Drummond Street Services. I reached out to my close friend Dominic who is also a Blak and queer person and living on his own country – on Kaurna Land/adelaide1, where we both grew up. Usually we had collaborated on justice issues that solely related to Aboriginal communities that we are part of, but I wanted to work on something with a specific queer lens.

We both wanted to work on something that showed more of the personal, that related to different parts of us and our community that aren’t always seen. Also, we just wanted to do something that was fun for them and us.

We started thinking through our project and reflecting on our own personal experiences.

We chose the title OutRage as this relates to going out ‘raging’, which is part of what we say in our communities when we are going out partying and having a good time.

We wanted to capture the beauty and sheer sexy (I’m thinking of Andrew Birtwistle-Smith in his leather

1 The de-capitalisation of words throughout this article symbolises the critical narrative that is decolonial Blak discourse; a purposeful decentring of colonial institutions that in their existence diminish Blak personhood. here) of who we are when we’re feeling ourselves. We chose photography as both of us have an interest in visibility and seeing visible Blak queer bodies, and while this method was new for me, Dominic already had experience in this field.

The project is also a response to events in 2020 like BLM [Black Lives Matter] and policing and prisons; the feeling of Black-rage equally supports the title in this case.

How our communities have responded with our bodies and voices during a time when we are expected to be publicly invisible – and are literally being invisibilised through state violence – were reasons for us to pursue this project.

Thinking back over histories of what Aboriginal people’s resistance and survival in the early colonial era looked like, there were always queer ancestors on those frontlines. So we really wanted a project that encapsulates survival, and characterises our fun and diversity, while sparking ongoing discussions around surveillance of Blak bodies particularly closer to home in south australia.

DOMINIC: We always felt there wasn’t much representation of Aboriginal queer people from south australia, so we wanted to create something that was local to share. Just like every other corner of this continent, there are Aboriginal queer people who are contributing to their communities, who are fabulous, beautiful and deadly. We felt a responsibility to share local stories.

With the constant policing of us as Aboriginal queer people; with racism, homophobia and transphobia; and then adding in another layer of Covid – this made us want to create a space with participants so they could be expressive and feel free and beautiful in who they are.

At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, lots of well-off white people kept saying, “This is the great equaliser.” It’s not! Racist social and economic hierarchies continue to exist and are being reinforced.

When Covid eventually spread into our communities, particularly the rural and remote, there was a lack of response from australian governments and non-Aboriginal health services. The responsibility fell on our already underfunded and under-resourced community controlled services. It’s still happening as the virus continues to spread and new variants form.

BEXX: Can you tell me about the time spent preparing, photographing and editing these images?

DOMINIC: We sat for a while and discussed our boundaries, and how the project would interact with mob. We spent time prepping ourselves because of cultural protocols, and it was a sensitive time.

LATOYA: south australia didn’t yet have the same lockdown restrictions as other states, so it did make it easier for us to travel nine hours to a remote Aboriginal township just outside of Ceduna and take photos of Simone Miller, for example, but we were very aware of Covid nonetheless.

Having the privilege of taking the photos at participants’ houses identified the lived environments that they navigate daily; the meaning of home is a pinnacle of this project because all Land is sovereign Aboriginal Land, and this is where Aboriginal people belong.

Aunty Polly Sumner (She/Her), Aboriginal Nation: Ngarrindjeri, Narrunga and Kaurna

Driving into Koonibba Aboriginal community, the mission outside Ceduna, to meet Simone, and being taken down to photograph at the waterhole, means that we were immersed in her community context and culture. Quite literally, every street is named after a family group rather than colonisers. We’re immediately told a story of community pride and honour. That stunningly staunch and lovely character of her community resembles who Simone is, and this is seen in her photos.

Being invited into the homes of all our participants, sharing meals and cuppas and time with each of them, was not only about ensuring mob were comfortable, but it’s part of who we are, our relationality, how we show up for each other and the genuine love that underpins this project.

DOMINIC: This is visual storytelling and our participants got to contribute in a way where they had control over how they looked and felt, and where we took the photos. They had control over their story being told.

The early photographs that were taken of our people were predominantly by colonists and anthropologists. I love looking at those photos and seeing my people’s faces, but to me they don’t feel warm. Their purpose was often to capture images of the dying race, during a time we were being prepared for our extinction.

We didn’t want to bring that white gaze approach to the taking of our photos – we wanted Aboriginal people to be photographed on our own terms. We also followed in the footsteps of other Aboriginal photographers who have reclaimed the power of how we are photographed: Destiny Deacon, Aunty Polly Sumner, James Tylor and Colleen-Ara Palka Raven Strangways come to mind.

LATOYA: Also Tamati Smith, Michael Cook, Aunty Barbara McGrady and Travis De Vries.

DOMINIC: We learn from them, and their work taught us how to challenge the process we took in putting this together.

LATOYA: We wanted (most) of the photos to be bright and we wanted them to show colour.

There are a lot of narratives around the doom and gloom of Aboriginal people; we’re often seen in the media and news discourse as disenfranchised and impoverished. Our photos are usually edited with greyscale, to make them seem so sad, desperate and victimising. I’m over that! I’m over being edited this way myself!

BEXX: Tell me about your favourite part of this project.

LATOYA & DOMINIC: Working with mob was our favourite part – seeing these incredible people shine. We chose people that we not only admire, but who have strong local standing in their communities. Aunty Polly Sumner has been working in leadership roles within Aboriginal health for four decades. Andrew Birtwistle-Smith is the CEO of an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Service in rural south australia. Sasha Smith is his niece, a proud sex worker and emerging filmmaker who is heavily involved in language revival of her people, the Boandik people. Simone Miller is a proud Sistergirl living on her country. She’s a manager for the social and emotional wellbeing team at her local Aboriginal medical service and has spent years advocating for Aboriginal trans people. Like Simone, Violet Buckskin has contributed so much locally for mob, especially those who are LGBTQ+, including being involved in Moolagoo Mob & Blak Lemons.

We are privileged to see these Blak LGBTQI people across magazine pages. This body of work speaks to why we must continue to think critically about representation, and what it truly means for our survival.

Simone Miller (She/Her) Sasha Smith (She/Her), Aboriginal Nation: Boandik/Meintangk

Together, Latoya and Dominic will continue to work on two more cycles of photographs taken of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTQI mob living within the colonial borders of south australia.

BEXX DJENTUH-DAVIS (she/her) is a Ghanian/Māori woman from Aotearoa. She’s currently the senior practitioner for queer youth programs at Drummond Street Services, and is living on Wurundjeri Land/melbourne, australia.