SKIN & FLOWERS is multipart, multidisciplinary project that responds and reimagines queer past, present and futures in Malaysia, through portraits, poems and performance. It was born from a line in Nayyirah Waheed’s poem “-less”. She says, “i want more ‘men’ with flowers falling from their skin.” This image struck me. It’s soft and tender and the beauty of it is that it suggests this softness is something that comes from within, and not an external intervention. That we are all capable of softness if we choose it.

 

It first began as a series of watercolour portraits, responding to the poetry of Nayyirah as well as local poet and friend, Lily Jamaludin, with a queer lens. The paintings imagine moments of softness and intimacy with people who are only adorned with batik and flowers growing out of their skin. Not only is the visual familiar and accessible to Malaysians, but just like batik and flowers, the communities I belong in, especially the LGBTQ community, have always been here and will continue to belong. 

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As the violence began to escalate, reimagining through painting alone did not feel enough, so I brought it to the theatre. In 2018, together with 4 ensemble members, Theyvapaalan S Jayaratnam, Hannan Barakbah, Lily Jamaludin and Emlynne Shauna Tham, we devised SKIN & FLOWERS: IN TEND(ER); a 20 minute movement piece that seeks to take back the words that harm us and reimagine with defiance, a new way to speak about our identities using all kinds of writings, from Baldwin and Krista Tippet, to poems made by the ensemble along with soundscape. 

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The series was also featured in my performance piece, QIXING: The Artist Has Died, in the form of SKIN & FLOWERS: IN(VERSE), which premiered at Urbanscapes 2018.