22 March — August 2018: First Exhibition of Work By and About Trans Sex Workers in a National African Gallery — InterseXion Exhibition, Iziko National Gallery, South Africa
Robert Hamblin, in collaboration with Leigh Davids and members of سيستاز هود, held the InterseXion exhibition, which opened at the Iziko South African National Gallery on 22 March 2018. This was a landmark event and a pivotal moment in the South African art world as it was the first time that a National Gallery showed work by and about trans sex workers. The exhibition was on show for five months from March through to August 2018 and consisted of voice and video installations as well as photographic images.
“InterseXion was a body of work consisting of performance photographs and voice works created with The Sistaaz Hood support group for trans sexworkers at the organisation SWEAT. It took almost seven years of support group meetings, explorations of feminisms and making decisions on how to work in ways that decolonised methods traditionally used to document communities. In that work I had to explore my own identity in contrast to the group members. The work was personal in the storytellings but we also looked at ourselves as representing the divides that existed between myself as a white male presenting privileged person and their own range of feminine and black identities also framed by class.”
– Robert A. Hamblin
“InterseXion is a body of photographic images, voice and video installations pertaining to sex workers in South Africa, in particular feminine identified transgender sex workers. Photographer Robert Hamblin has collaborated with sex work activist Leigh Davids to photograph and interview transgender women who sell sex. To engage with the subject from multiple perspectives, Hamblin pertinently inserts himself into some of the works with Davids. Presenting the intersection of gender, sex and class from the perspective of trans people acts as a lens to consider the power consequences of how bodies present in society.”
— Iziko Museum
“Hamblin’s InterseXion unfolds in three series’, The SistaazHood, Diamond Town Girls and the installation Intersections. This exhibition is centred on the artist’s photographic images, voice and video installations pertaining to sex work in South Africa, in particular work with transgender women (male to female) who sell sex. Through this thought provoking and compelling exhibition, Hamblin joins an active and ongoing debate around the decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa and the social-political issues surrounding individuals in the industry, wherein transgender women are described as the most vulnerable populations.
A narrative that Hamblin continues to explore through his work is that of the complexities around sex work in South Africa. Since 2011, Hamblin has been producing bodies of photographic work with trans women sex workers. He has done so because of an interest in the subject matter, but also in an attempt to present their experiences as a macro reflection of the fault lines in society. How do we as privileged persons intersect with sex worker’s lives and how are we directly and inadvertently implicated in their struggles? How does his own trans identity as a privileged person contrast with that of a homeless trans sex worker?
His interest in the conceptual potential of the subject matter was evoked by his involvement at the organization SWEAT (Sex Workers Education & Advocacy Task Force) in 2011. Before volunteering at SWEAT, Hamblin was a founder member and advocacy manager at Gender DynamiX, an organisation concerned with transgender rights. At SWEAT he was asked to assist a group of transgender women who worked as sex workers, to form a support group. Delving into his own knowledge and experiences as a trans person and advocate, he could assist the group with advocacy planning. Being a volunteer relieved him somewhat of the constraints of pure advocacy and during the work with these women he found the intersection for his art practice and activism. The Sistaaz Hood support group was born and their first goal was to create an art project with Hamblin. The first series of works with them carries the same name. The works aims to elicit an interest with viewers to review contrived notions of sex workers and trans people. During the collaborations with The Sistaaz Hood (Cape Town), and later the Diamond Town Girls (Kimberley), Hamblin allows his models to become co-creators of the works. “In a process of consultations with the participants, their frustrations became the portal, or the lens through which I approached this project. There was a range of issues; I came to realise that if you ever want to glean society’s perception of trans issues, or even gender issues, these participants’ lives provide a space within which such matters are severely concentrated. It is the space where gender, class and race intersect and leaves an indelible mark on the lives and bodies of these participants” Hamblin explains.”
About Robert Hamblin:
Robert A. Hamblin is an artist, published author, afab-feminist and parent. His art flounces around gender and bodily things. He seeks a reconnection with nature for queer people. His fine art work is concerned with masculinity, power, whiteness and the performance of these constructs. Hamblin’s conceptually driven, painterly photographic works have been exhibited locally and internationally. He has received critical acclaim for his compelling works that contribute to debates around body politics in a post-apartheid era. He is the published author of “Robert: A Queer and Crooked Memoir”, which Supreme Court Justice Edwin Cameron described as “A remarkable feat that challenges people to examine not just their own sexuality and identity but their very humanity.” Robert was a founding board member of Gender Dynamix, and later years the Advocacy Manager.
