MELVIN FECHNER DIGITAL RESIDENCY
To celebrate the launch of the new Art Music Design website, five unique artists have been awarded Digital Residencies. These artists have custom created content for the Art Music Design website and social media channels. In this residency we introduce to you the raw and eloquent writing of Melvin Fechner, and their experiences of growing up in the Barossa.
Note: the views expressed in these residencies are the views of the artist and do not necessarily reflect those of Art Music Design Barossa, Regional Development Australia Barossa Gawler Light & Adelaide Plains, or the Barossa Council.
Trigger warning: the following content contains mentions of sexual assault, bullying and violence.
GROWING UP QUEER IN THE BAROSSA
During the early 2000s I was prolific in the visual arts, especially wearables and collages, heavily inspired by the works of the great queer and transgender artists like Genesis P-Orridge and Leigh Bowery. One of the favorites I made was called “Growing Up Queer In The Barossa”, an outre-lite work detailing exactly what it said - what life then was like for me. Everything was alluded to without being pornographic. I entered this work into a big trendy art exhibition in Adelaide. When I attended the opening it was amusing to see my work hung so far up the wall it was as close to the ceiling it could get. All the rest were hung at eye level. The mainstream world was still not ready to hear the truths spoken by certain minorities who expressed them through their art.
I survived and the cliche that it makes you stronger is somewhat true, but one still carries the baggage of being the target of hate, misunderstanding and ignorance. This is universal whether you are a minority by gender, by disability, by race - by anything the majority has deemed as “the other” and therefore suspect. When these discriminations are inflicted upon young children, it feels even more uncomfortable in retrospect, as I cannot imagine why other people would do that and be alright with themselves. As we know, children are sometimes the targets of even more heinous kinds of use and abuse by adults, so we really should not be surprised. But it has always been a mystery to me why humans inflict evil onto others. You feel like you are paying the price just for existing and being yourself.
It was the decade of the 1980s and the most relentless of the bullies were girls. They did not like anyone who didn’t fit into the gender binary system. The boys didn’t mind so much, they didn’t really seem too bothered about it. If any were, I could use humour to win them over - eventually they would call me their “court jester”. But the girls were pure pack mentality and seethed with hatred aimed at anybody who was even a little bit different.
Somebody like me who is “different” yet confident and comfortable being themselves - and also coming from a supportive and loving family - would bring out a lot of jealousy and hate in peers who came from troubled home environments.
I thought high school would hopefully be a different experience but no, it was basically the same. Nobody back then wanted to befriend somebody as openly queerly eccentric as me - not even other outcasts of which their were hardly any. I think the only person who spoke to me was a cousin who was only doing so to gather gossip for her mother - my dad’s sister. I ended up hanging out in the school library for countless hours, hiding from the madness of the straight world. There I could research and read about people like me who survived and lived to tell their tales. People like me who went on to do amazing things. People like me who educated others on the importance of tolerance and acceptance.
Puberty came late for me for which I was grateful - I didn’t want to get these things called “periods” that the popular girls whispered about with each other. It sounded scary and grotesque and I didn’t want to think of my body as a potential baby oven. I didn’t even think I was a girl for goodness sake - I knew I was definitely between the gender binary, somebody with aspects of both but also neither. The term non binary was not bandied about then as it is now. There were the terms androgyny and gender bending, via 80s New Romantics and New Wave pop stars, but I didn’t know of anybody who listened to that sort of music. Oz Pub Rock or Hair Metal were the two socially accepted genres of music amongst the school kids.
Thirty-something years later and bullying is still a problem - possibly an even bigger problem now than it was back then. It seems like it is much more widespread and also the way that kids who are bullied deal with it is more extreme. We hear about suicides on a regular basis. This is not ok. There needs to be a lot more done about it and it is mostly the responsibility of teachers and parents to call it out when they see it. Back in the 80s teachers would even participate to win favour with the bullies - which shows that adults can also be very emotionally immature. Now and again a “celebrity” makes a stand against bullying and even though this draws attention to the issue it is still not enough. The cause of why the bully is the way they are has to be dealt with, most likely they need help with possible abuse they have been on the receiving end of. It would be a wonderful thing if no child had to go through a childhood of being bullied, and they could be allowed to exist as the unique individuals that they are, peacefully in a healthy, open and tolerant society.
M. Fechner, 2019.
BIO.
Melvin Fechner has been writing since they could hold a pencil. They were born in Tanunda, educated at Tanunda Primary School and Nuriootpa High School. They did not enjoy either particularly, it was hard in those days being a gender non conforming individual.
Later Melvin studied Visual art at Marden Senior College and Adelaide Central School of Art in Norwood which was much more their thing. Melvin won an award for being the highest achieving student for art at Marden Senior College.
Melvin’s Father was the manager of the Barossa Herald newspaper in the 1980s. This interest in the world of newspapers led to a stint with Melvin working for News Ltd in Adelaide in the 1990s until Melvin left due to political differences.
Melvin had a break to recover from leaving an abusive ex-spouse and the deaths of both their Nanna and Father. Since then they have reignited their writing career. Melvin has two series on the USA pay to read website Channillo, Hometown Unicorn and Newscorpse Nineties. Melvin also blogs and is prolific on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr.
Melvin also collaborated on three books published by Wakefield Press with above mentioned abusive ex-spouse. Melvin now has a much better life partner as well as a gorgeous pet cat called Kitty Katzen.