I'm Nervous by Marla Bendini [2014]
[07.08.14 — 30.08.14]
I’m Nervous is Marla Bendini’s new solo exhibition organised in conjunction with the 10th Indignation Festival, Singapore’s longest running LGBT festival.
The daring photographs grant an intimate glimpse into Bendini’s transgressive and playful work as a transgender performer and Butter Factory’s Head Freak. The dance club becomes her space for queer performances as she plays with bombastic forms of self-representation, performances that spill out into public spaces. Transforming herself through wildly expressive and unabashedly loud costume changes, her presentations alternatingly push against our normative standards of ‘fun’ entertainment and good tastes, and disarms these standards.
The exhibition is a development of her work from No Approval, the previous edition of Grey Projects’ annual queer show held in 2013.
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“Marla Bendini” was created in 2007 as an amalgamation between art and life, to explore multiple liminal identities and fluidity in perspectives. Her multidisciplinary approach towards this amalgamation has become a signature form of hyper-visibility, using the existing politicised body as a catalyst and vehicle for further discourse. She seeks to both engage and disarm audiences through her various presentations as a trans person, activist, artist, drag queen, pole dancer and aerialist.