From my secular standpoint, I have a hard time understanding how these three Dudes could provoke anyone. But I live in a bubble. Ideological peers surround me.

It seems the intersection of religion, gender, and sexuality is the pivot point where the -isms and -ists get their maximum leverage. And then they strike with unproportional force.

This series focuses on men and masculinity. Using ideas around performance and performativity. It holds fictive portraits of athletes, vocations, and religious patriarchs as a way of imaging masculine coded contexts.

It was suggested by the university where I study (no - not in Hungary, Nigeria, or Qatar) that these images could not be exhibited - and if they would, they’d have to come with a warning text. That statement certainly collides with how I perceive things. In my bubble.

I’ve been called Politically Correct and Social Justice Warrior. I’ve always taken that as a compliment. How can it be wrong to make an effort for tolerance and equal rights? But if the struggle for equality and social justice materializes into trigger warnings and anxious expressions of what art and culture are allowed to be - COUNT ME THE F##K OUT!

If the university is at the base of democratic civilization and holds a very anxious standpoint like this. Imagine how that motion exponentially multiplies out in the very extreme tip of our society. Like a whip. That very endpoint is tiny - but it strikes quick and hard.

We will dance with the people we love. We will write songs, paint pictures and make movies about all the things that concern us. No matter what your thoughts are on that.

This is the very essence of making art. This is how we think about things that are hard to verbalize. This is the exact point of cultural expression.

This was previously posted on Instagram.

I’ve been meaning to make a longer text and/or video about this topic. And it will still come. Further down the line. But I had to get this out of me now with this weekend’s shootings in Oslo fresh in mind.