Ciara Pillay

Everyone has bodies, right?

How did religious fiction become reality? 
And reality, a religious fiction? 

Sex education is a history of imported categories, a history not mine, a history I don’t claim – but everyone has bodies, right? 

Sexed,
sexy, 
sexualised, 
sexual bodies, 
right? 

Western perceptions of sex education continue to remain limiting and limited, especially in spaces where heterosexual-sex education is the norm, and where there is no regard for sex workers, queer people, people of colour, differently-abled bodies, and indigenous communities whose cultures do not mirror those of the west. Where men are never blamed, and women are cursed; where sexual men are just men and sexual women are objects. 
 
– but everyone has bodies, right? 

How to resist, how to resist… 

Queer bodies and bodies that queer. Bodies that fear, bodies that fight to exist, and  still survive with no answers. 

So many questions to be answered under an unwavering Western regime. When it finally falls, 
everyone, 
will, 
have, 
bodies, 
right?

Ciara Talisa Pillay

My work revolves around my experiences as a queer Indian woman living in South Africa, and through the use of my experience I attempt to challenge and critique the narratives that inform the queer(ed) body in the modern sphere through an inspection of historical and traditional narratives. This is done through the use of my body, the bodies around me, my spaces, my history, and my positionality as a femme-aligned identity living in South Africa. I explore themes of sexual education, queerness, the body, the gaze, and historical narratives in the modern sphere.

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