Fatima Jamal | |
---|---|
Born | Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
Nationality | American |
Other names | FatFemme |
Alma mater | Morehouse College The New School |
Occupation(s) | Filmmaker, model, interdisciplinary artist |
Known for | No Fats, No Femmes, Pose |
Website | fatimajamal |
Fatima Jamal is an American filmmaker, model, writer, and interdisciplinary artist. A Black transgender woman who goes by the moniker "Fat Femme," Jamal is also an activist who speaks and makes art about social issues including racism, body positivity, and LGBTQ rights. [1]
Jamal was born in Atlanta, Georgia and attended Morehouse College. [2] She completed a graduate program at The New School, where she studied documentary filmmaking. [3] Jamal underwent her gender transition after finishing graduate school. [3] She credits her move from Atlanta to New York City as giving her the opportunity to thrive. [4]
About her art, Jamal has said, "My art really focuses on a black, queer, femme experience because those are all things that I'm interested in. I will never grow tired of capturing black, queer, and trans people and excavating our histories." [4]
Jamal has modeled on runways at New York Fashion Week, is a fixture of the ballroom scene, and has appeared in the TV show Pose. [4] She was the first black trans model to walk the runway for a major menswear fashion house, for Stefano Pilati's unisex line in fall 2020. [5]
Jamal starred in Tourmaline's film Atlantic is a Sea Bones (2017), which takes its title from an eponymous poem by Lucille Clifton. [6] The film concerns black queer history in New York City. [7]
In 2020, Jamal began a crowdfunding campaign on the website Indiegogo to support a documentary, No Fats, No Femmes, that Jamal is writing and directing. According to her fundraising campaign, the film "examines and troubles how the gazes of others — particularly dominant white gazes — inform how we see ourselves and each other. In it, I center and am fascinated by my own Black, fat body as a site of criticism; and, an invitation inward, toward self — often, a self un-done, vulnerable, and terrifying." As of September 2020, the campaign had raised more than $55,000. [8] The project was featured in Artforum in July 2020. [9]
Jamal has been cited as a source of inspiration by other contemporary artists. [10] Gabriel Garcia Román's “Queer Icons” series of paintings (started in 2011), which honors queer activists and artists, includes a portrait of Jamal. [11]
Femme is a term traditionally used to describe a lesbian woman who exhibits a feminine identity or gender presentation. While commonly viewed as a lesbian term, alternate meanings of the word also exist with some non-lesbian individuals using the word, notably some gay men and bisexuals. Some non-binary and transgender individuals also identify as lesbians using this term.
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Java Jones: "While in the studio, I often refer to this question Fatima Jamal posed in an Xtra interview: "Representation and visibility is given to us by larger power structures, but what do we give ourselves?""