Siyakaka Feminism: African Anality and the Politics of Deviance in FAKA's Performance Art Praxis

Abstract

114 Feminist Studies 47, no. 1. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. Jordache A. Ellapen Siyakaka Feminism: African Anality and the Politics of Deviance in FAKA’s Performance Art Praxis In 2015, FAKA, a black femme multimedia art collective, emerged on the South African art scene and immediately drew local and global attention to their use of performance art as a disruptive aesthetic strategy . FAKA consists of two members, Thato Ramaisa and Buyani Duma, who radically reimagine themselves in performance as Fela Gucci and Desire Marea.1 Through performance art and aesthetic practices, they 1. Fela Gucci is a reference both to Fela Kuti, the late Nigerian musician and composer, and the global fashion house Gucci. Fela Kuti is best known for his unapologetic love of sex. In his biography, he states that “the one most important thing in the human being is that life-giving and pleasurable sensation: sexual orgasm.” Quoted in “Sex is Life: That’s What I Believe”: A Look into Fela Kuti’s Biography,” Sowetan Live, January 6, 2015, https:// www.sowetanlive.co.za/good-life/2015-01-06-sex-is-life-thats-what-i-believea -look-into-fela-kutis-biography. Kuti recognized that sexual pleasure is a site of intense regulation and condemnation, especially if it challenges heteronormative ideas of monogamy and reproduction. According to Kuti, sex is more than politics ; sex is life. Sex, as a multisensorial and life-giving experience, is central to Gucci’s and Marea’s personas and FAKA’s practice more broadly. Duma’s use of Gucci is a resignification of power through fashion and aesthetics. Gucci represents the pinnacle of Western fashion aesthetics and beauty, which is out of reach to those who exist on the margins of a society created by the capitalist world order. Duma disrupts these hegemonic meanings of Gucci by demonstrating the power of their creativity to resignify their value and worth in a context where African queers Jordache A. Ellapen 115 disrupt the relationship between Blackness/Africanness and cis-normativity through which the authentic African subject is imagined within postapartheid and postcolonial African state-formations. In the process , FAKA’s objective is to reimagine black masculinity. Their politics of disruption emerges through the positionality of black male femininity organized around the bottom/anus, a site of abjection in heteronormative cultures. FAKA is on a mission to create a living archive through aesthetic and performance practices that include photography, sound art, music videos, DJing, performance art, fashion, literature, and creative writing. They have performed at cultural institutions and stages across Europe, Asia, and South Africa—reimagining and refiguring the meanings of Blackness. FAKA’s objective is to disrupt the heteronormative gaze and the violence of heteropatriarchy in order to destabilize the “cis-hetero-topia of postcolonial Africa.”2 This article examines FAKA’s articulation of a distinctly pan-African queer feminist praxis, which they have labeled Siyakaka feminism. Siyakaka feminism celebrates black, queer, femme, and gender-nonconforming Africans in a cis-normative context that renders them abject. FAKA’s practice emerges from their experiences of displacement in a nation where Blackness is intimately sutured to the heteronormative. do not have access to global trends, brands, or fashions. The name Fela Gucci merges Duma’s African and Western influences and aesthetics while demanding autonomy for African queers who are multiply marginalized . FAKA’s emphasis on fashioning/adorning the body with signifiers of wealth and glamor is best captured by Desire Marea, who writes, “Capitalism gives us access to all the artefacts that can have a different meaning when subverted” Quoted in “FAKA: Making Living Performance Art That Flips the Script on Gender Norms,” Mail and Guardian, September 29, 2016, https://mg.co.za/article/2016-09-29-00-faka-makingliving -performance-art-that-flips-the-script-on-gender-norms. This is also their way to resist the commodification of their bodies and identities. Duma’s pseudonym Desire Marea is a reflection of their desire for a better life, one where black queers can exist truthfully and authentically without the threat of violence. It is also important to note that the boundaries between Ramaisa and Duma and their performance characters Marea and Gucci have become blurred, to the...