DCC 33: Femme Space Amanda Arkansassy Harris

I encountered Amanda Harris’ work via a Gender and Media class.
I love her Femme Spaceproject and was so excited to talk to her
for this episode!  Amanda  is a queer high femme charmer
from the South. She was the co-curator of Y’all Come Back:
Stories of Queer Southern Migration in the 2015 National Queer
Arts Festival, where she exhibited portraits in her EXODUS
series.

Her photographs have been published in Glitter & Grit: Queer Performance from the
Heels on Wheels Galaxy, G.R.I.T.S.: An Anthology of Southern Queer Womyn’s
Voices, Towards the “Other” America: Anti-Racist Resources
for White People Taking Action for Black Lives Matter, as
well as various online sources including Al Jazeera
America. She believes in the future of the femme oligarchy and
the power of portraits to tell stories.

Please see images at www.dresscodecracker.com also! 

Amanda’s art and activism has been informed and nurtured by
online femme community. We talked about femme visibility and
marginazation in queer and other spaces. She also talked about
taking the conversation beyond queerness to include race, class,
ability, emotional labour, privilege of butch and masculine of
centre people –and letting femme stand alone—femme sex, and femme
on femme relationships

I liked hearing her perspectives on collaborating with vs
exploiting femmes from marginalized groups. On the topic of
privilege, she referred me to an article online by Cyree
Jarelle Johnson,here. 

….also to a wonderful resource for femme articles and
resources—intiated and collated by Blyth Barnow, reflecting the
wisdom of  large community of facebook femmes!

Of course in the bonus round I asked Amanda for her book
and music recommendations. 

She mentioned Amber Hollibaugh, whose book My Dangerous Desires is a favourite of mine
too.

The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch
Reader 

She recommended work by 
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha whose most recent book
isDirty River I totally recommend too!

And…Amanda contributed to a recent book, Glitter & Grit: Queer Performance from the Heels on
Wheels Femme Galaxy.  which I’m gonna try to get
my hands on soon!

Her music recommendation is GAYmous which you can find on FB

Amanda’s latest project Y’all Come Back
Now, is here, and looks amazing. Thank you so much Amanda!
You’re a charmer for sure. ♥