Love, sex and politics in Queer South Asian Art: Intimacy as resistance

Sunil Gupta needs little introduction. He has been a stalwart in the South Asian queer cultural scene for decades. In 2020, The Photographer’s Gallery in London showcased ‘From Here to Eternity,’ a retrospective exhibition commemorating his distinctive photographic oeuvre spanning three continents. This marked one of the first significant exhibitions to consolidate Gupta’s political and often provocative body of work amassed over several decades. In an interview, Gupta expressed his view of his work as part of broader cultural activism aimed at enhancing the visibility of the South Asian queer community. 

Originally from India, he migrated with his family to Canada, where, in his own words, he ‘had the good fortune of arriving straight after Stonewall.’ However, Sunil found Canada back then to be a much more exclusionary place, making migrants like him feel very unwelcome. Following a brief period in New York where he abandoned a degree in business management for photography, he made his way to London in late 1977 to join the West Surrey College of Art and Design (now UCA Farnham) on a full-time photography course.

In Canada and the United States, I could pass for various things — Puerto Rican or something — because there weren’t many Indians. It was only when I came here (to London) that I also encountered the ‘Indian problem.’ For the first time, I heard about ‘Paki bashing’ and was told, ‘Paki go home.’ I had never experienced that before. Even getting on the tube felt difficult. The ‘gay stuff ’ here wasn’t that great,
and then there was this...

Sunil’s account of London during that time serves as a stark reminder that South Asian gay men were not only navigating homophobia but also facing violent racism fuelled by Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech and Thatcherite policies. These policies reversed social welfare measures and ushered in an era of social conservatism, exemplified by legislation like Section 28.

This legislation limited government funding for LGBTQ+ social groups, censored what could be taught in schools, and contributed to a rising tide of homophobia. The purpose of such laws was to curtail the support provided by local authorities and bodies like the Greater London Council to racially marginalised communities and LGBTQ+ support groups. Despite these challenges, intergenerational knowledge sharing and interethnic solidarity played crucial roles in the early organising phase, although they were not without their difficulties. Sunil says: By 1983, I had discovered the GLC (Greater London Council), which supported ethnic artists and ‘radical’ work, and I got... well, I became politically black. After this, I became much more involved in gay and black arts and similar activities. However, there was a problem with this kind of organising because half of the desis I was meeting did not want to identify as black. Immediately, we encountered a problem there.

Sunil’s time at Farnham and later at the Royal College of Art, where he obtained a photography degree in 1983, was also fraught with challenges. Presenting ‘gay work’ was often frowned upon, and the gay art he had encountered in New York was largely ignored or omitted from the curriculum. However, during this period, he connected with other Black and Asian artists and became involved in community organising efforts. These connections led to introductions with the Greater London Council (GLC) and other local authority bodies that were among the first to fund minority initiatives, marking the beginnings of the Black Arts Movement.

Sunil Gupta’s body of work documents significant moments in LGBT history, including the gay liberation movement in New York, the HIV/AIDS crisis, the enactment of Section 28 in the UK, and queer activism in India.

In their introduction to the exhibition and book project Ecstatic Antibodies: Resisting the AIDS Mythology (1990), Sunil Gupta and Tessa Boffin articulated the necessity for artists and cultural producers to intervene in the cultural sphere. Their aim was not only to maintain the visibility of AIDS in the face of a homophobic backlash, but also to scrutinise the politics of representation, particularly concerning the visibility or invisibility of certain communities, notably Black and Asian. Through actively promoting diverse forms of cultural expression, including video, photography and installation, artist-activists sought to address questions of sexual difference and race, shifting them from cursory acknowledgement to the forefront of the discourse.

At a time when the British media often depicted people living with HIV/AIDS in a negative light, the artists and contributors to this exhibition and book affirmed the persistence of love and desire, advocating for alternative forms of cultural representation to address the challenges posed by the epidemic. Gupta’s work delves into the biopolitical and necropolitical dimensions of the state, which determine the liveability and survival of queer bodies, especially those of colour. According to Gupta, there has been minimal progress in the past thirty years. He noted a lack of discussion about the historical context and legacies left by queer artists of South Asian origin. Instead, each generation seems to be attempting to ‘reinvent the wheel.’

Gupta’s photography has documented the numerous challenges encountered by British South Asian queers as they navigate racial and homophobic hostility. His photo series Pretended Family Relationships (1988) served as a response to the infamous Section 28. Each work in this series consisted of three components: a large colour photograph featuring a same-sex couple, a text panel containing excerpts from poetry written by Gupta’s partner at the time, Stephen Dodd, and a segment of an image captured during protests and demonstrations against Section 28 in London.

The title of the work is a reference to the clause’s provocative lines, which prohibited ‘the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship.’ The images in this series, which include portraits of interracial gay couples of diverse heritage in familiar settings of home, work and public places, attempt to bring to the forefront relationships and lives which were forced to the margins as ‘pretended’ due to their delegitimisation by the state. ‘Seeing you, seeing me, it all becomes so clear’ reads the text excerpt which accompanies a photo of a couple relaxing in their home and a photo of a protestor holding the sign ‘fight.’ Photographing couples in their home environment seeks to highlight novel kinds of care and chosen family as well as the importance of a safe haven, where people can express their gender identity and sexual orientation without fear of violence or persecution.

Gupta highlights queer intimacy as a political act, a theme that resonates throughout much of his work from this period. In Gupta’s photographs, queer bodies are not mere passive subjects; instead, they actively challenge societal norms. By capturing moments of intimacy and connection alongside scenes of protest and activism, Gupta’s work emphasises the agency and presence of queer individuals within the broader social and political landscape.

(Excerpted with permission from Desi Queers: LGBTQ+ South Asians and Cultural Belonging in Britain by Churnjeet Mahn, D J Ritu, and Rohit K Dasgupta, and published by Westland recently.)