Seema Mattu - podCASTE Episode 4: caste-oppressed queers 👽
During her year-long residency with Wysing Arts Centre, Seema developed podCASTE—a podcast series where each episode focusses on caste within a particular area of the world. Specifically, podCASTE opens up discussions which go beyond the notorious South Asian caste system. The lo-fi audio you’re about to hear places you firmly on Earth. This is to say that podCASTE in fact falls outside of the fictional narrative of Youterus and under a newer strand of SEEMAWORLD: da~LIT. da~LIT takes the worldly non-fictional view of a researcher, a fan labourer and an external examiner of intertwining themes around: caste, queerness, race and gender.
podCASTE episodes are presented online on Wysing Broadcasts and as part of Seema’s exhibition, The Scrawny Beauties of Ethni City, at QUAD Derby, installed in bus shelters. Every fortnight, a new shelter opens up another episode in the exhibition and a new episode will appear on Wysing Broadcasts.
Leading up to the exhibition’s launch, there were controlled environments in which visitors were able to interact physically with the bus-stop-like space as they might in real life. As a result, visitors who encounter the shelters, as more become available over time, portal between the show’s main setting in the fictional place of Ethni City and real-life responses to caste-centric lived experiences which inform the fictive storytelling that surrounds them.
Seema Mattu - podCASTE Episode 4: caste-oppressed queers 👽
Guest speaker: Manu Kaur (they/them)
Caste-oppressed diasporic queers discuss tragic love through Seema’s 2022 Role-Playing Game (RPG), love x lore, and the influence of caste on power dynamics & social hierarchies within South Asian queer circles - plus a comparison of lived experiences between India, the US and the UK.
This podCASTE episode contains strong language throughout.
Resources for the episode (as mentioned in the episode):
- Caste, Queerness, Migration and the Erotics of Activism via Open Edition
- love x lore (2022) - RPG by Seema Mattu (Contains one use of strong language)
love x lore (2022) serves as a bonus scene of Engodamy, one of the main over-arching narratives of SEEMAWORLD, from which multiple digi-novels and filmic works are produced. Through careful contemplation, relationships both with oneself and others are explored through the viewers’ own participation in a RPG (role playing game)—style interface, which embeds filmic scenes and characters in itself. Upon starting the game, viewers will have the option to choose one of four ‘tragic lovers’ - which each represent one half of the partnerships which make up Punjab’s four tragic love stories: Heer/Ranjha, Mirza/Sahiba, Sassi/Punnun and Sohni/Mahiwal. Both viewers and characters therefore have literal stakes in the game, as the viewers’ choice-making privileges will affect the arc of the scene. Whilst each playable tragic lover is based on folkloric legends, they present as subverted versions of themselves by way of extenuating factors e.g. gender, sex, body size, freedom level etc. By retelling stories at the core of Punjabi mentality and society, love x lore (2022) is an online RPG (role playing game) which sparks perpetual discourse around caste hierarchies, queer sorcery and expectations of sex and gender. At the same time, the work questions the shape of love, relationships and mortality on Earth through the importance of secret-keeping and trickery within the planet Youterus. The form of the RPG also mimics ‘Baatein’ - a popular game among Punjabis which involves the solving of simple riddles to do with how clues are presented. love x lore (2022) is an invitation to explore you. Your love, your lovers, your loveliness. Alongside this, you as the player get a taste of Youteran customs and conditions within an inescapable casteist society.
About Manu:
Manu is a queer, Dalit, non-binary femme who is committed to caste annihilation, queer liberation, and mental health activism. Their work is centered around advocating for caste oppressed communities, defending queer and trans lives, and dismantling the anti-Blackness that exists within the diasporic South Asian community. Manu dreams of a world that amplifies, uplifts, and protects Black, Indigenous, Dalit, queer, and trans lives.