Humans are such diverse, queer creatures, and should be embraced for their dif erences rather than oppressed because of them.

Diversity

Diversity as a sociological term implies difference, variation and resistance to the status quo. Having lived away from Ireland for ten years, am not qualified to speak about how it is in Dublin of other parts of the country in the LGBT+ scenes.

My queer self grew up in Berlin, where there are many scenes that fall under the umbrella of LGBTQI or queer.

When first moved here, initially to do a three-month art residency with my girlfriend and collaborator at the time, was overwhelmed by the diversity and freedom to be whoever one wanted to be; to change, to explore how wanted to present my image, to become more masculine or more feminine. The utopian atmosphere of possibility drifted in the summer air, steeped in history, leftist politics, community, and joyful parties occupied by queers who gravitated to Berlin to escape the heteronormative repression in their native countries.

Queer became a code for breaking down racial, class and sexual barriers. moved into a house project, which had been created in a squatted house after the Berlin Wall fell down and became home to women, lesbians, trans men, bisexual women. It was a project that gave refuge and a safe space to experience radical feminist politics in practice. met FLT (female, lesbian, trans) people from all over the world in this house and was introduced to many forms of political activism. The only people missing from the house were trans women. Trans women continue to be excluded from female-only spaces, which must be changed. Trans men and women must be allowed to share space with the gender they identify as and with.

The queer scene is inherently diverse, as is gender variation. The gay male scene can often mimic or fetishise homogenous hyper-masculine archetypes: the skinhead, the muscle queen, the twink, etc. Fashion can be very homogenous and stifling for diversity and gender expression. Yet it is becoming more diverse. If you look around, humans are such diverse, queer creatures, and should be embraced for their differences rather than oppressed because of them. The categories of sexuality and gender should be revolutionised in order to allow for more freedom of expression.

Over the years have learned to transplant anarchist group methodologies into my film practice. was drawn to working with trans and gender queer persons in Prototypes, to explore multiple experiences of gender through various lenses, featuring several trans artists, writers and performers living in Berlin.

The work is therst in a three-part film series set in the Interbau Project in Berlin, drawing on a wide range of feminist perspectives within queer theory, psychoanalysis, quantum physics, genetics, cybernetics and systems biology.

In ‘Queering Boundaries’, an essay in the upcoming publication Prototypes, which will be launched at the end of September at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Lou Drago writes: “Prototypes is a series of dreamscapes interrogating transsemiotics through psychoanalytic practices, speculative technologies and live action role-playing. The recurring iconography of snails, hermaphroditic creatures, reminds us that humanity has always carefully selected from the vast array of nonhuman subjects to uphold its view of what is constitutive of being natural.

“In psychoanalytic sessions, the protagonists revisit their various dreamscapes, rendering new interpretations of past experiences and speculative futures, opening doors to a de-naturalised and post gender cosmogony where bodies are hybridised and semantic limitations defied.

One protagonist professes that the experience of taking testosterone feels like a sci-fimovie, suggesting that this depicted version of reality is one formerly unimaginable.”

Doireann O’Malley’s ‘Prototypes’ is on view in The Hugh Lane Gallery until September 30, www.hughlane.ie