Lahore: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Junior, in a video interview to The Turmeric Project, opened up about his artistic work centred on queer subject matter, performing as a Muslim drag artist in prominent night clubs in the United States, politics and how violence plays a role in shaping identities.
With most of his work focused on how he views masculinity versus the traditional view, Bhutto replaces traditional symbols of “strength” such as muscles, dumbbells etc, with flowers and colourful layers.
He takes out texts and images from mainstream books such as the Urdu translation of a book “written by” Arnold Schwarzenegger.He then alters the images and paints them with different colours to reflect softness.In most of his works, he keeps the Urdu calligraphic texts intact while highlighting “cheeky referenced” words to play with “homoerotic” overtones.
In the video, Bhutto criticises the stereotypical notion that “the representative of nation is a strong man… I mean, it’s ridiculous”. “What for me is masculinity? It’s softness, it can be effeminate, it can be gentle,” he adds.
Bhutto says he believes history exists in layers, and, referring to his embroidery work, adds, that “the string that holds the pearls together is very much history, it’s very much how we identify.”
Talking about how violence influences identity, Bhutto says “growing up as a kid, even though I lived a very peaceful life, one of the things that always came to it was that violence existed everywhere.”
“My father was killed when I was six-years old, outside our home, in Karachi. He was assassinated. My grandfather was also killed, my aunt was also killed, my uncle was also killed… all assassinated,” he adds.
“So how our identities are formed [is] through violence, ummm… through force”
The Turmeric Project’s video also features one of Bhutto’s drag performances, which touches upon the subject of Islamophobia in the United States (US) using humour and dance steps on pop sensation Nazia Hassan’s super hit song from the 80s, Disco Deewane.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Jr did not talk about whether or not he is interested in joining politics back home but he does seem to have created his own space in the LGBTQ activism in the US as he goes on to say “I think part of being queer is that… DIYs like, making your own space”.
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Published in Daily Times, June 24th, 2017.
