What is Queer Keratin?
On the whole, this practice I have dubbed “Queer Keratin” is a grand experiment. It is the culmination of years of interest, intersecting with the “right” timing. I have been exposed to the way community is inherently Human for many years, subconsciously knowing this and taking it for granted. When I left my home city, I left behind my network of connections and at the time I was grateful for this fresh start. However, building connections as an adult is far more difficult than I ever realized, and far more necessary than I understood.
I have been ruminating about what to write to you for a long time now, the snapshots of concepts surprise then escape me until I have finally sat myself down here in our Collective space. I started to research a documentary film I recently watched and was transported back to 2013 when I traveled the length of South Africa. Bear with me, it’s all connected in the end.
Unfortunately my memory is a bit blurry about this time, a whirlwind four week stretch across an entire country as far away from my house as physically possible. I remember being exhausted, constantly stimulated and definitely out of my comfort zone. We spent the grand majority of this trip, a group of around 80 humans, traveling and singing choral music. The relationship that Africans have with music is very different from the white settler colonial hymns I was used to. The trip was deeply educational, I was able to visit a very special place there called Moutse, in the province of Limpopo. A space occupied by many, and most notable, Ndlovu Care Group. I can’t remember the name of the person who toured us through the township, but I do remember learning about the medical facility there. How the care it provided was crucial to the health of the population surrounding it, and how it wasn’t abandoned but the people who built it stayed and cared for the community once the project was complete. Ndlovu Care Group is to this day a mainstay of community healthcare in that region.
More recently in my life, I was introduced to the organization Partners in Health through the 2017 documentary film “Bending the Arc,” which follows PiH’s story of providing TB care in Haiti and around the world. I would highly recommend viewing this film if you are able to do so; the concept is similar to what Ndlovu Care Group provides in the township of Moutse. Community Care, professionals who educate and uplift a population otherwise neglected by state health infrastructure. The care provided by Partners in Health is absolutely crucial for the survival of the humans featured in the film, and the transformation seen on screen is undeniable. The treatment that Partners in Health administers works.
One of the main ways they administer care is by educating healthy members of the community to attend to the less healthy ones, generating an empathetic and social care that defines whether or not the patients recover. Hiring local folks instead of parachuting in white care providers not only increases community resiliency but builds trust in treatment practices between community members. Without the community they would not have had the same health outcomes as a clinic visit alone. It is the steady and reliable communal care that sustains these bodies through rigorous rounds of treatment.
While Queer Keratin won’t be able to treat you for TB, I do hope to bring some level of what these organizations are building into our community. Taking care of each other, a safe place to
be vulnerable, and allowing me as a stranger to care for what makes us the same. Our human bodies are of course all very different, and yet… We all come equipped with similar hardware. It is my privilege to try and care for yours, as I hope someone would care for mine.
Until next we meet,
Andie Burrill