‘Transing’ Identity: A Practice of Reparative Reading for Challenging Heteronormativity

Abstract

In contemporary Japanese society, heteronormative norms limit women’s and LBGTQIA+ rights to their bodies and also the artistic representation of sexualities. Although Japanese feminist art has tried to deconstruct these norms, their practices result in strengthening heteronormativity ironically. As a reason for this re-enforcement of heteronormativity, this thesis points out the separation and entailed power relation between categorised sexualities, such as between cis women and queers. Instead of the separated and categorised sexual identities, this thesis proposes the possibility of ‘transing’ from one sexuality to another. This possibility is shown by an attitude of ‘reparative reading’ suggested by the scholar in queer studies Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Reparative reading is an attitude that exposes its practitioner to being surprised by both good and bad contingencies and encourages them to enjoy their agency of telling ameliorative stories with these contingencies. To operationalise reparative reading, this thesis offers the idea of ‘touching the skin’ by combining several feminist and queer concepts. Touching the skin encourages us to rethink our self-identity: it lets us imagine that we are continuously and inevitably influenced by others. By using the idea of touching the skin, this thesis analyses how the reparative reading of Love Condition, the video installation created by two Japanese female artists Mai Endo and Aya Momose, challenges heteronormativity. Notably, this analysis focuses on the transing spectatorship: the intimate interaction between clay and hands, the central visual motifs in Love Condition, invites the spectator to leave their identity as a mere audience and identify with the clay and hands instead. Therefore, Love Condition’s practice of touching the skin allows the spectator to repeatedly cross from one identity to another, and as a result, the spectator faces the indeterminacy and relationality of their (sexual) identities. Furthermore, this spectatorship can be internalised by the spectator. This possibility indicates that the spectator can imagine and practice their own ways of living apart from heteronormative limitations in their everyday lives.