It’s great to create art on your own, but it’s even better to combine more
than one person’s great visions and the figments of ones imagination, and let those
ideas emerge into something more. Fashion designer Duran Lantink and
photographer Jan Hoek had been familiar with eachothers work for a while before
they had plans to work on a project together. They both tend to challenge the
status quo, and you never know what to expect when it comes to their art. Before
starting on their latest project, they searched the internet together in hopes
of finding something to inspire their collaboration. That’s how they found out
about a group of women in Cape Town, who stood out thanks to their colorful
looks, their outragious yet fashionable clothes, and their feisty characters.
This discovery eventually led them to fly to South Africa.
South Africa’s leading sex worker human rights organisation S.W.E.A.T.,
which stands for The Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce, gave the duo
the opportunity to meet up with a group of women who form the transgender
support group Sistaazhood in Cape Town. This group of women would then become the subject of their new project, called Sistaaz Of The Castle. They got to
talk to twenty different girls who are all active members of the city’s
transgender sex worker community and who frequently work with the Sistaazhood. These conversations formed the foundation of the project. Sistaaz Of The Castle features many members of the Sistaazhood, but mainly revolves around the six
beautiful transgender women Coco (25), Cleopatra (23) Sulaiga (30), Gabby (29) Flavinia (33) and Joan
Collins (57), of which most are homeless and living under a bridge beside the
castle of Cape Town. Together, they have created a
very unique art project that aims to portray these women in a more positive
manner and to showcase their amazing sense of fashion.
What stood out about these women was their ability to turn the
most hidious garments and whatever materials they can find into beautiful gowns
and couture. In a way these women are all fashion designers themselves and when
faced with their way of creating their unique fashion, Lantink recognized some
similarities to his own working process and became intrigued. Lantink and Hoek became interested in what the girls would
look like and how the girls would líke to look if they had unlimited
possibilities. They began having conversations with them and then
found out that these women have some big dreams and hopes for the future, and
that they have a very positive mindset. For example, one of the girls told Lantink
that she has no desire at all to quit her job as a sex worker, and that one of
her biggest dreams is to work at a Victorian brothel called Lady Marmalade. The oldest lady
of the group, Joan Collins, told the duo that she often has dreams of a
beautiful wedding dress and that she has always wanted to get married. A third has
dreams to spread positivity across the land and become Miss Africa at some
point. The conversations they had
eventually inspired the duo to come up with a project that would not only
showcase the group’s creativity, but would also shine a positive light on the
lives of these women. Lantink created several amazing outfits that
are based upon the South African women’s biggest dreams and their visions, and
inspired by the amazing fashion they usually create themselves. Photographer
Jan Hoek then photographed these six women while they were wearing their unique
pieces, giving them the opportunity to model their dream fashion.
The outfits were presented at the Gashouder in Amsterdam, as
part of the Amsterdam Fashion Week. The photographs were exhibited at
FOAM, in the same city. The project got great reviews and the press was full of
praise for both elements of the project. It goes without saying that Sistaaz Of
The Castle turned out to be one of the greatest highlights of the Amsterdam
Fashion Week. The next step for Lantink and Hoek
is to return to South Africa, to present the Sistaaz
of the Castle fashion show in the girls’
living environment in Cape Town.
This would give the girls the opportunity to walk their own catwalk show
at the place where they want to convey a more positive image on the community.
One of the reasons that the Sishaazhood wants to shine a more positive light on their field of work, is to make people more aware of what it is that they do. They also want to raise awareness on transgender related issues. Because while the Sistaazs have created a relatively save environment for themselves and other sex workers in the neighbourhood, not all transgender sex workers or transgender women in general have it as good as them, especially not in South Africa. South Africa has a rather complicated
relationship with lgtb+ rights. It was the fifth
country in the world and the first country in Africa to legalize same-sex
marriage, which causes many people to assume that South Africa is in fact a very
tolerant country. Unfortunately, quite the opposite is true. In theory, the
lgbt+ community should be fully accepted, but the day-to-day lives of South
Africa’s residents tell a different story. Although they acknowledge the
existance of the lgbt+ community, it’s not something that is widely accepted or understood.
Because of that, people with a different sexual orientation or gender identity
often face discrimination in more ways than one. It’s needless to say that the
lives of transgender women in South Africa aren’t exactly easy, and it can be
particularly difficult for those who are involved in sex work, because of the negative stigma that's still attached to it. Even though sex work is very common in South
Africa and is more present in South Africa than any other place in the world, it has been illegal since the 1957 Sexual Offences Act. More recently, the purchase of sex
was added as an offence in a 2007 amendment.
It’s very common for members of the
lgbt+ community to experience severe acts of violence and discrimination. Theoretically, the South African constitution guarantees protection from discrimination for all sexual minorities, and the law says that every single person in the country should be able to have
acces to the highest
attainable standard of both physical and mental health. But in reality,
transgender women are often denied much needed help and medical care. It’s
incredibly difficult for transwomen to access things that are needed to pursue
their gender identity, such as hormones, contraceptives and other health
related items. It also happens way too often that sex workers and transgender women in general are denied access to hospitals and medical practices. Sex workers have quite frequently been blamed for contributing to the spreading of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases in South Africa. Because of the negative response they get when they ask for help or when they need medical care, many sex workers continue to live with their conditions without seeking help. This causes them to get sick or be in pain for much longer than what is necessary, and can in fact lead to the spreading of STD's and STI's, and diseases such as AIDS. It's also the cause of a growing amount of mental health issues amongst transgender women in South Africa. Because most people in South Africa still have too little knowledge of what it means to be transgender, the stigma isn't going to disappear anytime soon. That's why it's so important to spread more awareness and stop the negative portrayal of sex workers and the lgbt+ community in Africa. It also needs to be easier for transgender people to change their gender on their legal documents. Transmen- and women are often still forced to undergo procedures to change their documents and to have these documents match their true gender identity, including gender reassignment surgery, forced sterilisation, psychiatric evaluation. The information is out there, so it needs to be more accessible for the people of South Africa and any other country to attain this knowledge. Maybe then there will be a point where people who are part of the lgbt+ community, not only in South Africa but all over the world, will finally be treated as equals and will be able to pursue a carefree life.
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