{"id":1220,"date":"2024-07-10T17:05:02","date_gmt":"2024-07-10T17:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2024arles\/?p=1220"},"modified":"2024-07-18T10:26:02","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T10:26:02","slug":"notes-of-a-post-colonial-queer-exile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/notes-of-a-post-colonial-queer-exile\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes of a Post-Colonial, Queer Exile"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Story and photos by Judas \u0100tman<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I signed up for ieiMedia\u2019s journalism and photography program in Arles knowing I\u2019d be less than three hours away by car from James Baldwin\u2019s<\/a> house in Saint-Paul-de-Vence. Overseas, I carried with me a question that had burrowed itself in my mind: Why did he exile himself to France?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was happening in the psyche of this sharp witness to history that made him leave the United States for Paris on November 11, 1948? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Baldwin\u2019s decision to leave our country bothered me because, frankly, I judged him. Throughout my entire love affair with his work I have been frustrated by this feeling that were I to do the same, I would be \u201cabandoning\u201d our people, which is to say those of us who possess the same frustrations with our country and the fervent desire to see it transformed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone who knows me, knows that I speak about Baldwin and his work obsessively, as if when I read his words, I am engaging with a close friend over dinner and reporting out what he has told me. Even through this intimate love with his words, I have found myself angrily wanting to demand, “How could he leave?” How could he abandon our country that so desperately needed his sharp ability to bear witness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A view from the bridge along Chemin de Jonquets that crosses over Canal du Vigueirat, just after sunrise. Here I walked almost every morning in the middle of my time here in order to process the many tectonic shifts of change that rocked through my body and mind.<\/em>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But in my first two weeks here in Arles, I get it now. I\u2019ve been shocked, honestly, to find myself so in love with this town I never even knew existed outside a tiny, digital photo on a random website of a random media company. It is here, self-exiled, whisked by the wind to this tiny town, a leftist eye in the swirling storm of the far-right area that surrounds it, that I am able to feel the extent of my grief when I think of my country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I expressed a portion of this grief to Ania, the colleague and friend I met here in our program the first day as we walked together and had lunch. I told her I feel as someone who becomes increasingly more deviant and pushed to the social margins of American society, there are few options left for me but imprisonment, exile and or death. I said I\u2019m not afraid to die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ania Johnston peacefully listening to Ethel Cain\u2019s <\/em>Preacher\u2019s Daughter on the train to Arles after our loud night out in Marseilles, the first long weekend of our trip.<\/em>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ania said I was martyring myself. And she was right. Why martyr yourself for a country that doesn\u2019t care about whether you live or die? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like a morning bell, the truth of this grief tolls in my mind, echoing with an almost feverish level of vision, as if I could see the world between the 1\u2019s and 0\u2019s of the Matrix. In a notes app on my hike around the outskirts of the city, following the dirt paths along the Canal, I wrote the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

homeland is not a place, a person, a people, when you’ve lost your home<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

america is an abusive narcissistic parent. i have stockholm syndrome. i\u2019m not american. i never was. it\u2019s not a part of my ontology. it\u2019s not the core essence of who i am. i am an exile. i belong to no one. i belong nowhere. my home is in the liminal margins, between worlds, between countries. i am opening portals in my mind and hoping to manifest the same boundlessness in a western world obsessed with the borders of nationalism.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Despite this moment of separation from one country, I see a new self sprouting in the fields of another one \u2013 each seed a shard of Self that blooms through stickers, graffiti, and wheat pasting I find as I walk through the winding walls of La Roquette,  my integrity reflected in the architecture of this city. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A wheat paste poster encouraging Arlesians to vote against fascism, meaning the extreme right party, during the parliamentary elections on 30 Juin. The poster references the American rock band <\/em>Rage Against the Machine, who are known for their anti-authoritarian and revolutionary views.<\/em>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t know who these people were who posted them but I follow the trail \u2014 like Alice trailing the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, like Neo following Trinity\u2019s instructions to trail after the white rabbit to find Morpheus in The Matrix<\/em> \u2014 I leave my American self to find this Arlesian persona. And that persona is an evolving self, a truer self that enters me like a song humming a deeper resonance than I knew my own voice to be capable of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I leave Arles, I have no idea how to make sense of where I\u2019m going, because this place has struck me like a bolt of lightning, causing so many structures within myself to tumble and fall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When home, I won\u2019t be the same person I was before my time here. This new person I am becoming, I can\u2019t yet say who they are, but I was told by a sommelier in Plan de Campagne, a region just outside Marseille where Ania, my colleague, and I stayed this past weekend, that I\u2019m not meant to know how to make sense of all this right now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only moment that exists, he implied, is this present one: me, writing this \u201cpostcard\u201d while sitting in the dining room of my host family\u2019s home, my mind scrambling to understand the impact my time in this city is having on me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
 One of my last morning walks along the canal. This morning, the mist had rolled in and blanketed the fields. Finally, I had found my peace.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Story and photos by Judas \u0100tman I signed up for ieiMedia\u2019s journalism and photography program in Arles knowing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":1325,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-1220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-places","tag-arles"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/01-20240702_JudasWiley_46RueGenive_01.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1220"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1611,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions\/1611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projects.ieimedia.com\/2025arles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}