Femme Guevara (2018) 

Performance, blood, acrylics, military uniform, heels, black beret, silver star, gold hoop “pájaro” earrings. Digital C-Print. 4x6 ft. 

Femme Guevara, 2018, is a performance feminizing the Cuban revolutionary, Che Guevara. Styling a green military uniform, heels, gold hoop earrings engraved with “pájaro,” and my hands stained with blood, I confront the gaze, reveal an unprotected bare chest, smoke a cigar, recreate Guevaras infamous sitting with Elliott Erwitt, and position myself in suggestive feminine poses. Guevara considered being queer an inherently counterrevolutionary, bourgeois decadence and contributed to the culture of machismo that repressed many queer people. These self-portraits not only undermine a homophobic militant rhetoric, but also investigate the incalculable ways queer cuban history has been stripped from its protagonists. 

Cuba’s compulsory service obligation requires all who are assigned male at birth to serve a term in the military. Following the revolution, those who were were deemed ‘unfit to serve’ (queer people) were instead forced to labor as a part of "Military Units to Aid Production” at UMAP camps. In 1960, Che helped set up the first work camp at the westernmost point on the island, Guanahacabibes. A slogan on the signage entering the camps was “el trabajo los hará hombres”(work will make you men).