This performance makes full usage of Zoom\’s green screen effect to create an immersive multimedia experience for viewers. The images that you can see are drawings and paintings I made between 2005-2007 and 2018-2020and photographic stills and moving image recordings that I took between 2011-2019 on various iPhones. First presented to audience acclaim at a recent PoetryLGBT event, this short spoken work performance charts teenage-hood; discovering one’s sexuality in private, away from one’s parents. As a teenager, you do not really know who you are. This film is a self-reflection – a ‘this is what it was like’ to come to terms with my homosexuality; of me finding somebody attractive (men) but not really knowing what I am. I speak my personal truth, my personal history of seeing and not seeing to confront the politics of seeing and underline how validating seeing can be but also the difficulty of not being seen. Whilst it can be understood as one person’s (my) narrative so too can it easily be read as lots of different voices layered to talk about wider levels of experience with various references to cultural context that (any)one can relate to: George Michael, late night tv, bad porn. Part of the performance includes reference to a dad and son (me and my dad) conversation exploring what one is seeing and what the other is seeing about the same action of men in football with one person viewing it one way and the other a different way. Here we travel back in time to 1996, to a football match between Chelsea and Aston Villa courtesy of a cassette recording played through a tape recorder made at the time of the match.
Dr Lee Campbell is an artist, experimental filmmaker, curator, lecturer at University of the Arts London and founder of Homo Humour, the first of its kind project on contemporary queer male film and moving image practices that explore humour and LGBTQ+ storytelling. His recent moving image work revolves around his personal autobiographical perspective and explores (gay male) identity and desire. Comedy is an integral part of his work. He uses it to engage, disarm, and highlight. He also describes himself as a queer punk performance poet and has recently performed as part of INCITE!, SPEAK= AT HOME, London Queer Writers, SPORK! QUEER & STILL HERE and POETRYLGBT. He completed a BA in Painting in 2000, a Masters in Painting in 2007 and received his doctorate PhD in 2016 and was part of the artist studio programme Conditions between 2018-2020. Key performances include Whitstable Biennale 2008 and artist residencies at The Banff Centre, Canada 2012 and Spazju Kreattiv, Malta 2019. In 2009, his performance work was featured in a publication written by Bob and Roberta Smith called Hijack Reality: How to Guide to Organize a Really Top-Notch Art Festival. Between 2007-2011, he regularly performed as part of Testing Grounds. His recent films have been selected for many international film festivals including Queerbee LGBT Film Festival in London, SPLICE Film Festival, New York, MicroMania Film Festival, MicroActs International Artist Film Festival 2020, and The Gilbert Baker Film Festival, Kansas 2020, HOMOGRAPHY, Brussels, Visions 2020 selected by Hetain Patel, The Nunnery, Bow Arts Trust, London, Southampton Film Week and STATES OF DESIRE: Tom of Finland in the Queer Imagination, Casa de Duende, Philadelphia, USA. In 2020 he has been featured in John Hopper’s Inspirational magazine, appeared as a guest speaker for Tim Kirk’s ZERO Q: 20 QUESTIONS WITH INTERESTING PEOPLE FROM THE LGBT COMMUNITY and featured twice already this year on Queerguru.com.In 2020, he was a panellist on the LGBTQIA+ REPRESENTATION IN FILM DISCUSSION PANEL at The Gilbert Baker Film Festival USA.