Vaid-Menon's work addresses violence against trans and gender non-conforming people and critiques what they consider constraining gender norms.[2] They advocate for bodily diversity, gender neutrality, and self-determination.[3][4] Vaid-Menon has performed in over 40 countries.[5]
Early life and education
Vaid-Menon grew up in College Station, Texas. Their father is a Malayali who was born in Malaysia and worked as a professor. Their Punjabi mother Jyotsna Vaid worked as a health care executive; she grew up in Punjab and immigrated to New York in the late 1960s when Vaid-Menon's maternal grandfather Krishna Baldev Vaid got a college job in the United States.[6] LGBTQ rights activist, lawyer, and writer Urvashi Vaid was Vaid-Menon's maternal aunt.[7]
Growing up, Vaid-Menon was bullied for their race and gender expression.[8] They said they felt unable to come out on their own terms because as a gender non-conforming person, they did not know they were different until they were punished for it and told who they were.[9] They developed their art practice at a young age in response to this harassment. "Making art gave me the permission to live. I needed somewhere to put the pain."[8] They began to use poetry and style to interrupt other peoples’ assumptions, challenge shame, and declare themself on their own terms.[10] Because they were not able to express themself visually for fear of safety, they began to share their art online and received supportive responses.[11]
After leaving Texas, Vaid-Menon attended Stanford University where they graduated with a BA in feminist, gender, and sexuality studies[12][13] and comparative studies in race and ethnicity, as well as a masters in sociology in 2013.[14][15]
In 2019 Vaid-Menon returned to College Station to host a Pride celebration with the local LGBTQ community in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.[16]
Career
Performance and writing
From 2013 to 2017, they performed with former Stanford classmate Janani Balasubramanian as a slam poetry collective named DarkMatter, engaging in queer South Asian themes.[17]
In 2017, Vaid-Menon released their first book of poetry, Femme in Public, about harassment against transfeminine people.[18] They toured the show internationally, partnering with local trans artists and organizations.[19]
In 2018, they participated in a roundtable on beauty and discrimination published in WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly alongside Patricia Berne, Jamal T. Lewis, and others, stating: "As a gender non-conforming, transfeminine person, I am often told that I am ugly."[20]
In 2019, they completed an artist-in-residence at The Invisible Dog Art Center, performing "Strangers are Potential Friends" and hosting a "Valentine's Cry-In" to explore public grief and alternative forms of intimacy.[21] They have facilitated "Feelings Workshops" internationally.[22]
In 2020, they published Beyond the Gender Binary, writing: "The gender binary is cultural belief that there are only two distinct and opposite genders: man and woman. This belief is upheld by a system of power that exists to create conflict and division, not to celebrate creativity and diversity."[23]
Fashion
Alok Fashion Collection 2017
In a 2019 interview with Business of Fashion, Vaid-Menon advocated for the complete degendering of fashion and beauty industries.[24][25]
Vaid-Menon has designed gender-neutral fashion collections, which are known for their color and celebration of skirts and dresses as gender-neutral.[26] Fashion design became a "materialization of the life that [they were] living," a way to encapsulate what they were writing and thinking.[26] Their designs were at first inspired by imagining what they would wear if they didn't have to fear violence.[27] In their latest work, they are using fashion to challenge what kind of aesthetics are seen as natural and what are seen as artificial.[26]
Vaid-Menon has walked for several fashion brands for New York Fashion Week including Opening Ceremony,[28] Studio 189,[29] and Chromat.[30] They have modeled for several brands including Opening Ceremony,[31] Harry's, and Polaroid Eyewear. They have appeared in fashion magazines and editorials including Vogue,[32]Vogue Italia,[33]Bust magazine, Wussy Magazine,[8] and Paper magazine.[3]
Themes
Vaid-Menon's work addresses transmisogyny, violence against trans and gender non-conforming people, and TGNC representation.[34][35] Writing in Vice, Vaid-Menon said: "The majority of people still believe that trans is what we look like, and not who we are. We are reduced to the spectacle of our appearance."[34] In The Caravan, they said: "There is a long history of trans-femme bodies being reduced to metaphor, to symbol…and seen as stand-ins for ideas, fantasies, and nightmares."[2] They have argued that gender non-conforming people, despite being the most visible in public, remain the most neglected by the mainstream LGBT movement.[3]
Their performance style incorporates stream-of-consciousness, soundscapes, political comedy, and an emotional range.[19] They have said their style, like their identity, is in constant flux and refuses easy categorization,[9] and that performance is one of the only spaces where people can actually be real.[21] They have described performance as "world-making" with "a commitment to vulnerability, play, interdependence, and magic."[9] They have said the power of performance is that it is ephemeral and can never be done the same way twice,[35] and that they use it to teach "theories and histories that have been submerged."[36] In a 2018 interview with the Chicago Tribune, Vaid-Menon said: "The problem with a category is that you reduce something as celestial as a human being into a word. Words only approximate truth, and art is where we go when we actually want truth."[37]
Vaid-Menon has spoken about what they call "the international crisis of loneliness,"[27] and has sought to create public spaces for processing pain and establishing connection.[38][39] They have written about using technology as a conduit for intimacy.[40]
Critical reception
Vaid-Menon's practice spans photography, writing, clothing design, and video. Scholar Ace Lehner analyzed Vaid-Menon's work in the journal Refract, arguing that "trans offers a compelling challenge to photographic discourse." Lehner noted that Vaid-Menon photographs trans people and has discussed the difficulty of representing gender through visual art.[23]
↑Murray, Derek Conrad, ed. (2022). Visual culture approaches to the selfie. Routledge history of photography. New York London: Routledge. ISBN978-0-367-20610-9.
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