Art & Activism 003 - @lanapatelxoxo

Photos from Lana Patel

Lana Patel is an Afro-Indo Carribean, trans woman that works in healthcare, advocacy around LGBTQ rights, and Black & Brown rights. Originally from Jamaica Queens, the artivist also sings with the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, dances with the South Asian Dance Company and works on the talk show “Girls Like Us”. The actress and independent model uses her platform to amplify her own voice and the voices of others who have been marginalized. Her page operates not only as a space for art and activism, but as a portal that captures all the ways through which she celebrates her life.  Black & Brown people have celebrated life, as a form of activism, for as long as we’ve existed. Over the years, our lives have been minimized, threatened and taken by brutality, discrimination and oppression. Lana reminds us, in her social media feed and her advocacy, that taking up space is the only way to showing up authentically because showing up authentically is the only way that we can be effective in pursuing justice.

When did you start creating art and why? I feel like I've been an artist since creation; my earliest recollections include some attachment to art. As a kid, I remember singing and loving Pattie La Belle,  Mary J. Blige, Christina Aguilera and Brandy - she shaped my childhood. I’ve always had a love and affinity for music specifically R&B and pop. Even in elementary school, I sang in talent shows. I also loved drawing - I loved the 72 color, crayola box and I knew every color by name. When I was doing my artwork, I was always pretty detail-oriented. 

In 4th grade, I was placed in gifted classes and that’s where I found out that I enjoyed writing, too! We would get vocabulary words, create definitions for them, and create short stories. It allowed me to tap into my creativity and discover my love for sci fi and mysteries like creating Scooby Doo/Nancy Drew. This led to my amazing, middle school English teacher that pushed me to hone my craft as a poet. I sang in the chorus, in both elementary and middle school, and which helped me to develop my songwriting skills. I’ve acted in both stages of my life and I found that I loved to be on stage. Looking back on how I explore all of these avenues, I’m reminded that art has stuck with me and I'm grateful to have found all of these avenues through which I can express that love for art. I also freelance for MAC - so that’s another artistic path. 

When did you start sharing your art on your Instagram page and why? Started in 2015 because I just thought it was cool. The collages were cool, but it was iPhone only and I was an Android user. Then, when I got my new phone, my posts were miscellaneous and I think at that time it was just to document random stuff. We didn't see it then for what it is now, where it creates careers and community and people use it to speak out. I was working for MAC and was seeing a lot of looks being posted online and I wanted to replicate those, and my friends who all work for MAC and I started at the same time. In 2016, I wanted to take blogging serious, so I decided to start sharing more of myself and my art in 2017. I learned that there were communities, that I was finding community and that's when I started to take a leap of faith and speak my truth. That’s when I came out as a trans woman online and started the trajectory that I'm on. 

What topics or elements do you try to incorporate into your art? (I.e. politics, pop culture, etc.)? Everything under the sun honestly: being Black, being Brown, being first-generation American, being raised by grandparents, enduring abuse, the #MeToo movement, the #BlackLivesMatter movement, being apart of the LGBTQ community, my upbringing and what that looked like, being trans, my transition, my journey and what that all entails, the struggle of it, love, life, friendship, employment, discrimination, hardship, success, pursuing a career in the arts, visibility and theres so much intersection there. I’m three dimensional:  I want my work to reflect that I’m not just a Black person, or mixed or Brown or a trans woman...I’m multifaceted. I think, as human beings, we encompass and experience so many things. I like to say i'm very intentional in expressing various ways of living. 

What does your process look like/involve when it comes to creating pieces? Sometimes it’s current events, sometimes it's feelings, trends, fashion and makeup. When I create, I like to take into consideration what’s happening - might be the anniversary of something, the seasons, is it Hot Girl Summer and would I want to talk about that and what that means for me. I get these spurts of inspiration and I run with it. I’ll have an idea to do something so I do it, but my mind is always going a million miles a minute. I have a lot of creative ideas like once I saw Cardi B's song and video for “Be Careful”, I thought, “I wanna do something like this”.

And, when I saw my mom and my grandmother's processes of having a western wedding, I always told myself that I don't foresee myself having a western wedding. I wanted to play up on that and so I decided to create a bridal makeup look and then shape it around that. Then, I did something for Diwali in 2018 - I’d received a beautiful dress from India Trend and it has a close resemblance to an outfit that Deepika Pazukone wore in Bajirao Mastani. I actually got to perform that with my dance company. I created a photoshoot around that - I was very intentional with the color scheme, the lighting and the jewelry and that's kind of my thought process.

What’re your feelings about the recent murders at the hands of the police? It is disheartening, it is disgusting, it is enraging, its deplorable - i just think it is just disparaging, but I think what's important is the fact that we’re in a place where we can hold folks accountable and we’re in a digital age where we have tech that allows us to record and share. If it wasn't for tech, we wouldnt know of these murders and they wouldn’t be reported and we couldn't hold folks accountable and we would continue living as we were with these murders and lynchings happening under the radar. I believe this has been happening since Black folks came to this country, but now we’re in an age where we can see it - we know it’s happening and we can't turn a blind eye to it anymore. I think BLM put a lens to it and magnified this problem. We saw that with Trayvon Martin - a 17-year-old was shot and killed with Skittles in his pocket while wearing a grey hoodie. When we see these horrible murders, happening to innocent people, it creates motion that's necessary to foster the change that needs to happen in this world. People are meeting it with compassion...they’re fighting back against this system. It's been happening, but now we can see it - a person being killed out in the open, a man running down the street and getting shot, a man's neck being knelt on for nine minutes.

How have these events inspired your art? It's inspired me to speak up, speak out, create work around it, but I've also always been really intentional about speaking out against how Black trans women have been marginalized and disenfranchised. We have an average lifespan of 35 years - I don't see Black trans women live the American Dream, see them get married or have children. Unfortunately, I'm met with the news of the next trans woman and my work is definitely affected by that. I push through and forward because I want to leave an imprint on this world and, when it's my time to go, I want to know that I’ve been very impactful with my messaging... with what I put out into the world. I also want to achieve all of my dreams before it's too late. All of this affects me on a micro level - as a Black person - but on a macro level as a Black trans woman and how I navigate the world in Black trans women spaces, LGBTQ spaces, Black and Brown spaces. 

What was life like for you growing up? Art was very important, but to my family academics was more important. They never really cared for art - they just wanted me to get good grades and get a job that brought a good legacy to the family name like a doctor or an engineer. I initially went to school for psychology to become a psychiatrist because that's what they wanted. I dual-majored at first, in music too, but then picked psychology at the end of the day because otherwise they thought I would be wasting my time and money.

I was a meek and mild child, quiet and inquisitive. I had a little brother who was the star of the family - athletic and amazing. I excelled in most of my subjects, but math was never my strong suit - I was the artistic one! I was the one who wanted to act and perform, and they had strict rules. They said I had to have good grades if i wanted to pursue acting, but they never saw a future in it so i had to push for myself to make them see my potential.

How do you hope to inspire change? Through visibility. Showing that I'm capable and that I'm here, I'm present and that I'm going through doors that I thought would never open for me. I'm creating the necessary change that I want to see in the world and that I'm fostering change by being a vehicle. Having a seat at the table where I fought to get that seat or someone pulled the chair out for me, but visibility is very necessary. I'm just pushing for a change through visibility, but also to create opportunities so that Ii can open the door for others. So, I won’t be the first Black and Brown trans woman with a platform. I want to create a network so that we can see a wave of Afro-Indo trans people and LGBTQ people in all spaces. 

It’s clear that representation is important to you, as far as your art - why is that? For the longest, I just wanted to blend in and be a part of America and the American Dream and what that looked like. From 13-26, I lived in the south in a predominately white, conservative Christian area. The county I lived in was the largest county in Florida, but it was the most regressive when I look back on it. It felt like we were taking a step back in time almost, from Orlando to Polk County. They were two different worlds: the church my grandparents went to - the congregation was full of MAGA people. The youth church pastors were telling us how to vote and using the bible as reference before we were old enough. They said, “If you're hot for God, then you need to vote hot & republican. If you're cold, you’re a democrat and wrong. If you’re lukewarm, you’re independent and God will spit you out of his mouth.” 

There were big churches and catholic schools. I went to one of them, but then I went to homeschool. They have a senior living village, a Spanish church, a chapel, k-12, church for k-12. They had a college, a radio station, a bookstore - they were huge sponsors and had much capital there. I'm pretty sure these folks are why we have this current administration. I remember getting lost in that - battling with my identity. I went through conversion therapy at 14 years old, when I was withdrawn from school and homeschooled. As a result, I battled with body dysmorphia and self-esteem. I had really bad acne, hyperpigmentation, oily skin, gender dysphoria, not feeling comfortable in my skin and seeing the image of beauty having white skin and blue eyes. Looking at myself, I didn’t see what was being sold to me: I wasn’t the status quo and I wasn't what was “in”. For years, I stayed away from pictures, mirrors, my reflection. So, with my social media, it's a celebration of me and breaking down those barriers, loving myself and getting to a place where I’m comfortable. Comfortable seeing pictures, seeing myself in mirrors, learning the art of makeup and creating my own image of that, learning fashion, and seeing who I really am. 

The world seeing me as a woman, my body going through transformation and getting healthy skin was all a part of my journey - of my body, image and being comfortable now. It’s almost like my love letter to myself and it's an expression of self love and the journey that it took for me to get there. 

Favorite Food: I'm a foodie at heart! I love West Indian breakfast. While I don't eat it very often, because there's a lack of West Indian restaurants out here, I'm used to having it at my grandmother’s. I could eat it anytime of the day - sometimes I make it, but not often. It depends where you're from, but for Jamaicans, it would be fried dumpling, provisions, plantain, potato, yam, aki and saltfish (cod), callaloo + saltfish, okra + saltfish. Saltfish is the protein of the Caribbean. And then, on the Trinidadian side, tomato chokra - a dish with tomatoes with saltfish and peppers and garlic and onion, buljao - smoked herring, technically a salad - very pungent if you're not used to it. It’s normally eaten with bake - dough bread of sorts. A lot of people make shark and bake (bami) it’s cut into slices and fried in milk or breadfruit. It’s a big green ball that’s baked in the oven - the smell is horrid. I also love porridge with cornmeal and corn.

Favorite Genre of Music: R&B to sing along with, but I grew up with a lot of West Indian music too like reggae, calypso, soca, dancehall and chutney.

Favorite Artist/Band: It changes all the time, but right now..maybe my all time would be Brandy. For dancehall, I would say Buju Banton. A lot of the people I love have also been very problematic with their anti-LGBT statements and a lot of the things they put out.

Favorite Actor: Janet Moss - she’s also an amazing writer. Sushant Singh Rajput is my favorite actor. 

Favorite Program (through which you create your art): Instagram

Favorite Inner/Outer Feature: My mind and my eyes. The eyes are the window to the soul so I guess they are interconnected in a way. 

Favorite Item that you incorporate into your daily looks, special looks, going out, around the house: If i'm doing a look for a shoot, it would be lashes - I mean I have nice natural lashes, but I love a good lash.