Aggregate Space Gallery
Staple Bound, 24 pages, 5.5 x 8.5”
Publication Date: 18 June 2016

Bad Fags was written while immersed in Jamil Hellu’s exhibition All Ways Lead to the Mill during my time in residence at Aggregate Space Gallery, and was released as part of The Featherboard Writing Series. In conversation with Hellu’s work and Terrorist Assemblages by Jasbir Puar, Bad Fags interrogates how the U.S. constructs the stereotype of “the terrorist” as a perversely sexualized and racialized figure, asking the queer subjects who are (tenuously) brought into the patriotic fold as “good fags" to raise their limp wrists in salute.

This project found form in the context of the collective sorrow surrounding the killing of 49 queer latinx people at the Pulse Club in Orlando and was shaped by conversations I had with friends during this time around queer language, homonormativity, untranslatability, and loss.

*Includes stills from All Ways Lead to the Mill by Jamil Hellu