Linye Jiang 江麟冶 b.1988 is a photo artist based in Chicago whose research focuses on human complexity, queerness, and questioning the social concept of normality. She explores her subject together through photographic portraits, still lives, and landscapes. She makes photo sculptures and installations, videos and performances using the images she creates.
“Fruit” was widely used in Western countries in the 1960s-1980s as a derogatory slang term for homosexuality and queerness more broadly. When fruit first came to be used as slang, it was because most people defined it as sweet, juicy, and soft. An attempt to belittle a man as feminine. After being educated, people began to realize how ridiculous it is to use fruit to apply such a metaphor. No trait is limited to a certain gender.
In becoming familiar with these linguistic nuances, I tried to dispel my fears and complaints through the sense of distance between Chinese and Western queer cultures.
That’s why I began to shoot “fruit portraits”.
“Fruit” is a symbol that is somewhat alien to Chinese people, so, by using bright, saturated colors and weird combinations, the image appears clearly different from unaltered produce. I want these modified fruits to open the audience to a sense of curiosity and introduce a phenomenon that is easily overlooked via photographic imagery. I re-symbolize the fruit as it becomes a material that I can create, give meaning, and use to complete my imagination of queer life. I project my fetishes, my rages, my desires, my fears into the fruit portrait.
The weirdness of the fruit is, also, protesting, to a certain extent, the idea of “normal” advocated by patriarchal society. Being queer can still be challenging in both the East and West.