Curious about heterosexual dating habits in the age of the internet? Want to hear about it from the perspective of a feminist artist? Look no further! Oriana speaks with artist Indrani Ashe whose project 50 Dates of Grey documented her search for a man to spend her life with, to marry in fact, via online dating platforms. Unbeknownst to the men Indrani was seeing, she kept a blog under the pseudonym Unconventional Woman where she critiqued and vented about her experiences. Gossiping about this project with Oriana for this podcast six years later, having found love and steady employment, Indrani throws into sharp relief the economics of desire and the way that shame functions as a tool for social control.
Dr Oriana Fox is a London-based, New York-born artist with a PhD in self-disclosure. She puts her expertise to work as the host of the talk show performance piece The O Show .
Indrani Ashe is a US-born, Goldsmiths-educated, Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist of Bengali and white American descent whose practice speaks to the experience of the body as a political vessel, wresting the narrative from hegemonical structures. Her project 50 Dates of Grey earned mainstream press coverage from outlets such as Grazia, The Daily Mail and The Mirror bringing her blog 31,000 views to date. It was also exhibited as a multimedia installation at Exgirlfriend Gallery in Berlin as a part of You Look Like An Advert for Yourself (2017) and the exhibition & I<3U2 at Galeria Studio in Warsaw. Ashe is also the founder of the Berlin Diaspora Society and cofounder of The Golden Brown Girls Video Collective. Her work has been shown internationally with exhibitions at the South Asia Institute- Chicago, Galeria Studio-Warsaw, SOMA Art Space - Berlin, Root Division- San Francisco, El Segundo Museum of Art- El Segundo California, Graft Projects- Lancaster UK, Somerset House- London, Art 511 Mag- New York, Galerie Futura- Berlin and Queens Museum- New York.
Credits:
Would you like to see your name in the above credits list? In a couple of short steps, you can make that happen by supporting this podcast via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/orianafox
Visit www.theoshow.live for regular updates or follow us on Instagram.
Curious about heterosexual dating habits in the age of the internet? Want to hear about it from the perspective of a feminist artist? Look no further! Oriana speaks with artist Indrani Ashe whose project 50 Dates of Grey documented her search for a man to spend her life with, to marry in fact, via online dating platforms. Unbeknownst to the men Indrani was seeing, she kept a blog under the pseudonym Unconventional Woman where she critiqued and vented about her experiences. Gossiping about this project with Oriana for this podcast six years later, having found love and steady employment, Indrani throws into sharp relief the economics of desire and the way that shame functions as a tool for social control.
Dr Oriana Fox is a London-based, New York-born artist with a PhD in self-disclosure. She puts her expertise to work as the host of the talk show performance piece The O Show .
Indrani Ashe is a US-born, Goldsmiths-educated, Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist of Bengali and white American descent whose practice speaks to the experience of the body as a political vessel, wresting the narrative from hegemonical structures. Her project 50 Dates of Grey earned mainstream press coverage from outlets such as Grazia, The Daily Mail and The Mirror bringing her blog 31,000 views to date. It was also exhibited as a multimedia installation at Exgirlfriend Gallery in Berlin as a part of You Look Like An Advert for Yourself (2017) and the exhibition & I<3U2 at Galeria Studio in Warsaw. Ashe is also the founder of the Berlin Diaspora Society and cofounder of The Golden Brown Girls Video Collective. Her work has been shown internationally with exhibitions at the South Asia Institute- Chicago, Galeria Studio-Warsaw, SOMA Art Space - Berlin, Root Division- San Francisco, El Segundo Museum of Art- El Segundo California, Graft Projects- Lancaster UK, Somerset House- London, Art 511 Mag- New York, Galerie Futura- Berlin and Queens Museum- New York.
Credits:
Would you like to see your name in the above credits list? In a couple of short steps, you can make that happen by supporting this podcast via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/orianafox
Visit www.theoshow.live for regular updates or follow us on Instagram.
[Theme music]
Oriana Fox:
Hello, I'm Oriana Fox. Thank you for tuning in to Multiple Os, the spin-off podcast for my talk show The O Show. The O Show is a live performance piece that mines the conventions of daytime TV talk shows for all that they’re worth. It features artists and other experts who have little to no difficulty ’spilling the beans’ about their lives and opinions especially when they define norms and conventions. So if you’re interested in candid confessions non-conformity creativity and mental health you come to the right place!
[Theme music]
OF: Hi there, it’s Oriana. Just to let you know this podcast contains adult themes and my guest does bring up sexual assault, although only briefly, so listener discretion is advised.
I'm here with the artist Indrani Ashe whose interdisciplinary practice includes painting sculpture video, and looking for love. I'm referencing of course, her project 50 Dates of Grey, which entailed documenting her search for a man to spend her life with, to marry in fact, via the online dating platforms Tinder and loveflutter. Unbeknownst to the men she was seeing, she kept a blog under the pseudonym unconventional woman, where she critiqued and vented about her experience from an outspoken feminist and anti-capitalist perspective. I'm catching up with Indrani today, six years after the failed exert experiment has run its course. I shouldn't say failed because in some ways the project was a success. Specifically, it garnered mainstream media attention from the likes of Grazia, The Daily Mail and The Mirror, bringing the blog 26,000 views. Those are the kind of numbers you really want for your Arts Council application, isn't it?
Indrani Ashe: If only I was eligible. [laughs]
OF: [laughs] If only she was eligible. The piece is a very candid account of her real-life experiences that exposes the neoliberal misogynist principles that are embedded in dating culture. So I can't wait to hear more about it! Thank you so much for being here Indrani.
IA: Thank you for the wonderful introduction.
OF: So my first question is, are you still single?
IA: I'm not single.
OF: You're not single. That’s good.
IA: I've been in a relationship for almost four years.
OF: Oh, wow. Okay. So after you stopped making it, like two years after it stopped being a project?
IA: Actually, it was directly after the exhibition because there was a lot of, you know, like, I didn't want to just have a blog, I wanted to have an exhibition, I want it to be recognised as an art project, not just as a dating blog. So there was a lot of anxiety built up to then. And I, after the exhibition, like a month after the exhibition, I met someone just like in person.
OF: Okay.
IA: I just picked up someone and then it happened to be the thing that worked.
OF: So, stop making it art and it works?
IA: [Laughs]
OF: No, I mean, not making the project and finding someone artwork helped, you know, I know.
IA: Yeah, I don't I don't know what it is, it does seem like related. But the reason I made the project, when I started it was because I was having a hard time before. Do you know anything? It's not like I started to the project to look for love, but it's like I was looking for love, and I'm like, why isn't this working? Why am I so angry? And then I started the project.
OF: That makes sense.
IA: So that makes me also think that I learned something from the project, or it had to do some, with some other issues having to do with citizenship and agency and how much agency you have in a country or space.
OF: Yeah, I was thinking that as I was reading, as I was reading the blog, I thought she's doing this at a time that's so precarious and uncertain in your life. Like you were just finishing your master's degree, you didn't have you know, a visa that was gonna last long, very long. And yeah, it just seemed like there was so much uncertainty, it just seemed like this is what the you know, the advice columns would say maybe it's not the best time to be looking for someone.
IA: Yeah, maybe it’s not the best time. It was about how like certain people don't actually have the right to fall in love. Like you actually kind of have to I have this like economic citizenship these privileges lined up or no one is going to allow themselves to pick you. I mean, you're not there... There's not very many Cinderella's, you know, Cinderella is just a story, you know,
OF: Right. Although I think men, I feel like men have kind of gripe, and or maybe more so, I don't know if it's more so with heterosexual men, but just that kind of sense, or there's a lot of angst from men like that desire is an evenly distributed and that it's so much easier for women to find someone or, or just even just sex, but you know, or relationships. Like, it's so much easier for women and men have these, you know, they have to be, you know, have a career, whatever, like the pressure on men is bigger somehow.
IA: The pressure is on, I think women have to be financially credible, or have some integrity around that area, too. Because a lot, it was basically, if you care about money, like if you have enough money, like are you're a banker or whatever, you really care about money. So you also want to be with someone who cares about money.
OF: Yes, but that wasn't who you were looking for.
IA: And if you don't care about money, and you do a job where you don't care about money, you can't exactly rescue anybody.
OF: That’s true.
IA: You know, you at least need somebody who's like standing on their two feet kind of.
OF: Solvent. Like that was one of the options on one of the dating websites. It was like, are you you know, do you earn this much? That much? Are you solvent? And that was always the one I would choose like I'm solvent. That's like the best I can do.
IA: Well, it was just like the way that UK legislation was set up around visas, like in that position, you would have a hard time getting this these things which are actually on the second level of Maslow's pyramid like friendship, sexual intimacy, these like basic needs, you know. And it was about how we've like romanticised love is, oh, love is possible, you know, like, as it's free for everyone. And it's not, it's for those who are economically privileged, or privileged by citizenship to be in certain spaces. Yeah. So, it was nice that...
OF: That's interesting, because I met my partner after I like, I think it was a year after I got my permanent residency status.
IA: Exactly.
OF: And no, no, I did feel, I remember being conscious about that, or very, I would always be very defensive about that, I got my permanent residence the hard way. I didn't just, you know, marry someone or I, you know, I got it through 10 years continuous lawful stay. It's like the most annoyingly lengthy way to do it. But I was like, I didn't marry somebody. I didn't do that easy way. And yeah, but yeah, and I also maybe I was holding back from, yes, that finding someone until that was settled. I didn't want that to be the reason that I was getting together with somebody.
IA: But it did work for some people in my group. I think, also, through this project, I really learned to identify like these toxic male patterns. Like it's like a playbook. You know, it's like a playbook and older people know it. And sometimes younger people just fall for it.
OF: You know, right. Well, so I was thinking about it, because this was 2014/15. And I just felt like the, I was trying to marry it with my experience of online dating, which is earlier than that, because I'm older than you by a few years. So like for me like it was kind of novel for me to meet my partner on Guardian soulmates.
IA: Right.
OF: Whereas for I feel like for your generation and younger obviously it's it's completely the norm to meet someone online.
IA: I don't know. It wasn't. My first one was OK Cupid.
OF: Yes, I was gonna ask you whether you were on OK Cupid.
IA: Yeah. It definitely wasn't, it wasn't the norm for me to be in a big city. My story is I went to Asia for a long time. I went to Indonesia. And I was like kind of sussing out like, what is village life like? What is that kind of intimacy, like, you know, when you can just go to your neighbour and have tea with them and talk a lot? You know. And then I was in New Jersey, and I lived with my mom in an attic. So that wasn’t, that wasn’t like a hotbed of sexual activity. So, London was the first time I was like, alone, and there was a lot of like, different types of people, you know, some with like, a similar educational background. And I wasn't like the wild foreign girl, the way I would be exoticised as a foreign woman in Indonesia. And then I dated someone, but he had like, really hang-ups because of Islam, he had hang-ups about sex.
OF: Oh, ok.
IA: So that was like a very different kind of cultural landscape. So it was really my first time like, where I could just like date anybody I wanted. And yeah, I was seen in different ways. But I wasn't, I didn't have that, I didn't carry that colonial baggage of Indonesia. Yeah, so that's why I was so green.
OF: Oh, I see. Okay, so that's putting it into perspective a lot. Because I mean, I knew you were American, but I didn't know any details of, you know, your life. So, I mean, you said you had been looking for a while before. But, yeah.
IA: It's just that if you want to be in the city, if you if you're like, from a small place, and you're like, dying for your chance to be in a city, and like you don't feel comfortable in non-urban environments, that's what, so when you're like, oh, maybe I could live here for a long time. That's actually where you want to seek a partner. You don't want to get stuck in a place that you don't want to live in. Right? So, yeah, so that was that was part of it, that I could actually see myself living in London, if I could only get in to this, like social structure, and to the social circles there. You know, maybe I meet someone rich, and he knows lots of rich people. And then there's just some acquaintance at a party who has a job for me. And it's not a big deal, because they have so much privilege. But they're very guarded about their privilege. You know? So of course, it doesn't, it didn't work like that. And I just fell for every little like, toxic pattern, you know. And I, I, when I should have seen a red flag and said, No, and get out, you know, I prolonged things, and I wasted my time.
OF: But early on in the blog, you do say instead of being the unconventional woman, I'm turning into the short-term, dating girl.
IA: Yeah.
OF: So you did seem quite savvy to the games that were being played, or quite wary of them from the very beginning.
IA: Yeah, it's like you know but you don't, you don't want to believe it's only that. And you do want to be able to have this kind of intimacy on dates, not to just like, assume that you're going to sleep with someone, but be able to like create this theatre of intimacy where it feels like you might be falling in love. Like, that's the whole point of having the date, like you don't want to lose that kind of power to imagine that it could work. You know, because then there's no point in going on a date. Yeah, and you just like go through periods of exhaustion, and hoping and yeah, it's pretty frustrating.
OF: Yeah, in one of the kind of many press interviews you said something about, or they asked you about the numbers. And you said something like, I don't know 30 dates in such and such amount of time and they were shocked by that, but and you said it's not that I'm a serial dater so much as a serial romantic, which speaks to what you just said.
IA: Yeah. Or, I mean, I was, I didn't have a job that I couldn't. I was trying to get a job. But I was also doing this project as like kind of a media project, that maybe you could like do content writing, or some, you know, like a first, trying to turn an art degree into some kind of professional background where you can get an actual job is pretty tricky. Yeah, like, I didn't study graphic design, I knew I could write and like, manipulate media a little bit. So it was like, I'm doing all this work, like, emotional work to find someone, how could I turn that work into my work into my artwork into my, you know, portfolio that I could apply for jobs with?
OF: It was such a clever thing to do because I just know that I spent so much time myself in that same pursuit and if I had something to show for it, like a career thing that would be, that would be really amazing.
IA:I mean, I don't work in advertising, I just had this idea that it might work. I think I got one like, interview.
OF: So doesn't that make the whole project though really neoliberal?
IA: Yeah, well, it is.
OF: It's it's like, as was critiquing neoliberalism whilst being... Well, I mean, it's maybe impossible to escape?
IA: I mean, you're participating, your body is inside it. You know, you're seeking some kind of emotional intimacy, and you have to market yourself and commodify yourself and brand yourself as a dateable object are. You know, you have to think about what guy's fantasies are, if you can mould yourself around a fantasy so that they will click on you, you know, without, they're not going to think about you in a deep way. You know, it's a, it's like advertising. It's like a split second decision, whether they decide to talk to you or not, so you have to make yourself the product. And then if you have very little resources, you have to figure out, you know, how to be more than one, how to make your resources go in more than one direction, you know.
OF: Yeah. It's very savvy.
IA: I mean, it's a, it's a trap. [Laughs] The book I read about it, I mean of the books I read about it is Cruel Optimism by Lauren Berlant.
OF: I was gonna bring up Lauren Berlant. I wasn't thinking Cruel Optimism, of bringing that one up, I was thinking of the other one. I can't even remember the name of it. The one about… What the hell is it called? I was gonna bring it up, I should have written it down… the one where she talks about longing to be conventional in the vicinity of a love plot. It was like...
IA: So that you fit in to the plot? Like trying to be the object? [Laughs]
[wink sound]
OF: The book is called The Female Complaint and in it Berlant describes the central fantasy of US mainstream women’s culture as “the constantly emplotted desire of a complex person to rework the details of her history to become a vague or simpler version of herself, usually in the vicinity of a love plot.”
[wink sound]
OF: Yeah, but anyway, yeah, it reminded me of that. Yeah, I mean, Oh, right yes, because you call yourself the unconventional woman, but yet you want to get married, and you're looking for love and those things seem very conventional.
IA: Yeah, I think I didn't really want to get married to be married. I think I just wanted to stay in the country. And that's...
OF: Oh, so that's why you kept saying you wanted to be married?
IA: Yeah, no, I think that's the way the media kind of framed it because they wanted something that made sense.
OF: No, I thought there was one blog post where you have a discussion about marriage with one of the…
IA: Yeah, I think I, you know, I was just dreaming about a long-term relationship and if somebody said, married, I would be like, sure, you know, and I'm staying in this country!
OF: Right, it’s like a fantasy of that.
IA: You know, like when you haven't had like a long-term relationship before. But yeah, also like staying in the country, and that being married gives you more rights. And that's what I wanted rights and privileges. And now...
OF: But the idea of going to a city in America where you'd have them didn't appeal? Or they're just, yeah. Why didn't that appeal?
IA: I mean, you know. [Laughs]
OF: I know for myself, I don’t know about you.
IA: Most places in America, people are quite isolated. They're in their homes and they can't just like walk onto the street and like, you know, access several bars and coffee shops.
OF: In New York, you can.
IA: Yeah, but New York is only for certain very special people in certain income brackets.
OF: Yeah, I know what you mean. I don't know how anyone...
IA: That’s why there are like angry riots and protests and occupy and angry racists. [Laughs} It's because there's a certain group of people have set the system. It's not based on like social things, there are no Arts Council grants that go to 25-year-olds. It's more, all the money is going up, you know, and then like to be somebody like an artist, or, you know, journalists or some kind of like, job like that where you could express yourself and care about values, and you have to go to special specific schools, and those schools really cost a lot more money.
OF: Yes, yeah.
IA: Americans went to Goldsmiths because the tuition was slightly lower than what they would...
OF: I'm one of those Americans.
IA: Right.
OF: But no, that's good to, FYI, in case you're not one of us. [Laughs]
IA: They have it set, really set up so certain people, only certain people have access to that city. So I mean, I was in New Jersey for a year, and I could only get unpaid work. And I had one horrible part-time job where I was, like, really abused. And I was like, I'm never coming here again, goodbye.
OF: What part of New Jersey was that?
IA: I lived in, I lived in Westfield, and my commute was like two hours to my job. So you are separated, if you are poor, you know, you are separated by physical distance by the train schedules. By you know, the trains that don't run. It's like living in Essex. You are really separated from anything good or cultural.
OF: So but I mean, there are poor people in New York. Not all...
IA: But they've been there, it's like they've been there for a long time. They've been there. They're not like new.
OF: They’ve got rent-controlled apartments. Yeah, they're not new.
IA: Rent control is a good idea. People who live there are slowly, like being pushed out, sadly, you know. The like poor people live really, really far out in the boroughs, which is like living in New Jersey, basically, because you're so far away from things. So I just like, oh, well. And thankfully, like Berlin is not like that. Because, you know, I live like, a 15-minute walk from the Reichstag. You know, and I'm a lowly like, kindergarten teacher. You know, like..
OF: Is that your day job?
IA: Yeah. Like, I'm low income. I'm like, like, people write about my job and they're like, you must be miserable and underpaid. Yeah. Like, that's how people will talk about kindergarten teachers. It's care work. So of course, it's like that. Yes. But the thing is, I can afford to live here. You know, I can afford to live on a street with coffee and a bar and like travel 30 minutes to a gallery, you know.
OF: I got the impression that you don't want children or you didn't want children. I don't know, children never, like the desire for children never came up in the project or I didn’t hear it?
IA: I mean, if somebody threw a bunch of like, financial support on at me and said, have my kids, I'd be like, yeah. You know, like, I’d be one of those artists who are also moms. Yeah.
OF: I feel like you just described me I'm like, oh shit.
IA: But, you know, I was just, I just finished art school and I was like trying to figure out how to be an artist. So it wasn't like on my mind.
OF: Yeah, we were only 30 at the time. So yeah, you had some time.
IA: I had some time. But what my family expected is, they expected me to go like live in a small town and teach art at a community college and then maybe get married and have babies. And there's just this way that you feel in that rural kind of area, or the way North Carolina makes you feel like you feel uncomfortable with people and their political backgrounds, or their lack of knowledge or education, you just feel uncomfortable all the time. You know, there are a lot of people here in Berlin, who came here to like survive capitalism...
OF: Yeah.
IA: ...to try to be able to do their art or their writing or their music or something, you know, without like, all the economic pressure that you would find in London or New York. So I've thought of Berlin is like a freelancer colony.
OF: Well, interestingly, I mean, both you and Mischa Badasyan, who did the, who's the artist who was on The O Show, who did the project, about having sex with a different man for 365 days.
[wink sound]
OF: To clarify, I’m talking about Misha Badasyan’s project Save the date which he spoke about eloquently on The O Show “Time’s Up, Penis Down” episode, which will be released on youtube soon. If you want to be notified as soon as it’s available, subscribe to my youtube channel TheOrianaFox channel.
[wink sound]
OF: Mischa is a social worker. So he has a full-time day job, as well.
IA: Oh, great. I didn’t know that.
OF: Yeah, so neither of you are freelancers.
IA: I was a freelancer for a long time. The immigration office here said that I had to make more money, or they wouldn't let me stay. So yeah, so my goal is to get permanent residency this year, like through my own means. And with this, like fixed income, I can get permanent residency, and then later, I can like, just say, you know, forget this, you know, because I will have the right to stay here no matter how much, how much money I make, you know, so it's, yeah, that’s the difference.
OF: Okay, so there's a strategy in place.
IA: Right? It’s something that you can do for you don't mean, it doesn't have to be forever. Yeah, so yeah, that's why. So I tried to be freelance for a while. Like I applied to all those kinds of jobs and I used this project as a kind of portfolio. But it's really hard to get those kind of jobs, and to get them to pay you.
OF: In one of the blog posts, you say, shame is a tool for social control. I can't remember now the context for you saying that. But, but I think it was around the fact that about this, you know, this question of revealing these personal stories and the question of the ethics of that, and...
IA: If like, if I got into a sexual situation, but then there was like, a loss of consent, or, you know, something bad had happened to me in the sexual situation. I... there is a feeling like to, oh, maybe you should be embarrassed about that because you were on a date with that person, you chose to go on a date with that person, you were attracted to that person. But actually, you shouldn't, because when you reveal it and you talk about it, you can kind of figure out what went wrong. If that person hurt you, you know that they were wrong. And you can hear other people's perspectives about it. And then you can start to see it for what it is. So that was kind of, that's what the blog was like. It's like I could hear myself speaking and then I could also get other people to hear me speaking. And then I could kind of get their input and see, okay, this is what's going wrong. Like, it's not that I just have a bad feeling about it. It's like this is really going wrong. Yeah, imbalance of power, or men are manipulating me, are, you know, they're, when I give them the benefit of the doubt or when I'm really trying to develop intimacy with people, they're like manipulating my desire to be intimate to be emotionally intimate, or to have a relationship to like that me. You know, like they're like...
OF: Yeah.
IA: ...tricking me. I said, I say I'm like really looking for a relationship and they're like, oh, yeah, I'm looking for that too, and then like, we sleep together, and then they just disappear.
OF: Yeah, okay. Yeah, because you said, I think it was in The Daily Mail, they quoted you saying, “in my research, I have only discovered two types of men in London: those who don't want to be around me and those who pretend that they like me long enough to sleep with me.”
IA: Right? It's like, it's like, all of a sudden, the scales fall off their eyes after they woke up in the morning. Like, oh, yeah, you're really annoying. Like, what is wrong with these people?
OF: It really does paint a really negative picture of the men.
IA: Yeah, I don't know.
OF: Well, you know, it's similar, like it has a similar effect of Sex in the City, like, Sex in the City is about a bunch of urban women trying to find love, or trying to find sex. But it becomes this kind of catalogue of these different male types, or these urban male types like, yeah. And that's what it felt like a little bit with your project, like, for example, there was a “I made the mistake of flirting with a French guy” incident. Which, I mean, cultural stereotypes are obviously not great...
IA: Right? Yes. I guess it was a cultural stereotype, it was.
OF: But but it rang true to me because that's been my experience of French men as well or similar.
IA: So I'm sure there are French guys not like that.
OF: I'm sure, I know there are.
IA: Yeah, I think I was more just trying to describe London as a space where you meet people from different countries and that is this kind of hope for you that it's like, international, that you are an international person, and you're meeting international people. And maybe you feel included and accepted. And that kind of cosmopolitan environment, which you wouldn't have in your small town that you're from.
OF: Yeah.
IA: Whereas, I wouldn't feel that way in North Carolina, I would feel like guarded, like, I can't really reveal who I am or my experience, because that person might like judge me.
OF: Yeah, I was gonna ask whether well, you say, society has rules about my identity that make it hard for me to get into a relationship. And I was wondering, I mean, I assume those rules are to do with you being a woman, but I was wondering about the other aspects of your identity. I mean, obviously, being, you know, being from America and the visa status, but like, were there other aspects of your identity that kind of wrote rules about how you were perceived or I don't know?
IA: I think it's because I'm Asian and like, my mom is Asian, my dad is not, so I'm like, I'm from more than one culture. So I just have that had that like vibe like to veer towards inclusivity and like to have lots of people have different identities around me and to be accepting of them. And that is not like a natural course especially not for British people because they're so like class-oriented. And they're people like their and their families been there for like, hundreds of years. You know, as I said, it was the same family. It was the same circle of people. It was the same, you know, we all went to Eton.
OF: But the I mean, there's loads of mixed-race people in London.
IA: Yeah. I guess, I dated...
OF: Maybe you weren't meeting them for some reason.
IA: ...I think I dated, I did date some guys of colour, but it was never like a thing where they like, built intimacy based on that.
OF: Right.
IA: So I think I tried it and I did like jump up and down like anybody, about anybody who is like of colour or somebody who is like, from more than one culture. To me it, maybe it affects women in a different way. It was not that easy to meet multicultural kind of people, not I mean, not even at Goldsmiths.
OF: Yeah, that's that's so strange.
IA: It’s weird. But the background to this like Tinder project was that I was at Goldsmiths and most of my course was women.
OF: Yes, I know. I know that saga. I remember thinking there's just, of course I have to meet someone online because my entire social circle, every event that I might go to, will be dominated by women, like just a picnic with friends, or you know, or whatever a party, it's always gonna be way more women. I was never gonna meet anybody that way.
IA: Exactly, exactly. I love women. But it was also like, we were on our Masters and so of course, everybody had their like boyfriends and relationships. And London is such a big place where it really encourages you to kind of like be more efficient and stick with your partner. Because you don't really have time to travel across town.
OF: Right, yeah.
IA: It's about the size of the city, like Manhattan is a nice size. Yeah. London is like, okay, well, I just want to hang out with my partner because I can't go across town every day to meet some girlfriends. And I think that was part of the cool vibe that I was getting. It was just about time and how much time you have and that you have to economise somehow. So, just being with your partner instead of networking with everybody, it's how people economise you know, and the less privileged you have, the more jobs you have, the more like economic pressure you have, the less time you have to, you know, invest in people.
OF: Yeah, there was a really sad anecdote in in the blog about you planning a picnic and nobody came. But and it was all about like the heteronormative structures that meant that exactly that that the couples didn't bother to come, the single women at least apologised for not showing up and...
IA: And you can so easily categorise. [Laughs]
OF: [Laughs] Well, you categorise it, I mean, in the blog post, so...
IA: Yeah, it's so funny how yeah, I was trying to express really like Maslow's pyramid, it's the second level that you don't get this, you don't get these...
OF: Would it have helped to befriend more, like have a queer community around you, to have more friends who were, who are queer?
IA: Unfortunately, it would have helped to have been queer.
OF: To have been queer?
IA: Just like to have been, to be queer, be around queer people. Definitely, I've seen and Berlin that queer community are way better, they have like more solidarity. And, you know, maybe I'm just an outsider, but it looks good from a distance. But definitely, I mean, queer, you have different problems, but yeah, it frees you from those like toxic habits of this like toxic heteronormativity and this like, kind of, patriarchy, these yeah, these like dating habits, like these patterns, like I was talking about, you know, where people are so predictable. So yeah, it would have been better to be queer, I think.
OF: Except for all the homophobia and stuff, other than that.
IA: Well, yeah, except for all the homophobia and like the things that Mischa was talking about were totally different, like blatant aggressions and violence. So it's, like, I'm not even qualified to speak about that. I just think that I was just analysing my experience, I was just analysing like being straight.
OF: Yes, yeah, which is great. Because yeah, I mean, as a straight woman, I had a blog like as an artist in 2011, I think it was, like right as, when I met my partner and I remember like going to queer film festivals and being like, this film was so great, it really, you know, celebrated female desire and... But why is it that I'm always having to go to queer things to find this thing I'm looking for?
IA: Yeah, sometimes it feels like that.
OF: And with your work I was like, finally! I was, like, I mean, I guess there's Sophie Calle,
IA: Yeah.
OF: So when I found your work, there was Sopihe Calle, and you, there's another one whose work I can be like, I can really identify with this! And it's not through the lens of queerness. So that was nice.
IA: I mean, I guess people don't want to risk that, or a lot of people told me Oh, no one will want to be with you because of this.
OF: Right.
IA: Because you reveal so much. You have to be this person who doesn't reveal things. Because revealing something is losing your power. And it's all about power.
OF: Well, that's what you're talking about. Shame is a tool for social control.
IA: It's like, oh, I have to play this power game with you for you to like me, I have to not reveal anything. You know, and that's what it felt like this, like power game that people were playing. And I was like, I thought it was about intimacy. I thought it was about the opposite of power. Like I reveal something, it makes you able to reveal something. And this is how we decide whether we can really connect with each other, you know, but a lot of it felt like people holding back and being unable to reveal something like I was like, really open and revealing myself like emotionally. And people were unable like culturally, or in their mind, they thought of it as such a ...they thought it was a power game, that dating is like a power game that they couldn't open up. Really, they were always holding back. So I thought it was like, like this capitalistic perversion of what intimacy is supposed to be like, no one was really doing it right. No one was really opening it up. So it was like a dare, it was like, trying to dare them to connect with me.
OF: I'm just wondering, like you said OK Cupid was the first one you went on? Did you happen to do that, they had like a dating personality test where you answered a bunch of questions, and then gave you a verdict of like, what kind of dating persona you are, did you ever do that test?
IA: Like the profile?
OF: It wasn't making a profile. It was like they had these like, those fun tests that you could take and it gave you like a, like a quiz kind of?
IA: Yeah.
OF: Did you do that one where it gave you like a verdict on your dating personality? It was like, mine was ‘dirty little secret’. And then my best friend was ‘window shopper’. And it was so funny, and then my brother was a ‘five-night stand’ and my mother got the same one. They were both five night stands.
IA: I remember a percentage match, but I didn't get a name for my own personality. I had percentage matches. We talked about me and my studio mate, we thought that OK Cupid is more for like really English looking girls.
OF: Well, I mean, maybe it may have been different. Like, I feel like things have probably changed, like things change so quickly in culture, especially online culture. So when I was doing it might be totally different from when you were doing it, because also like I met my partner on Guardian Soulmates, and literally like six months after we met, my best friend told me that Soulmates just went downhill because they redesigned their website and the algorithm was all messed up and it was terrible. And so I feel like I can't I got him like just in time. Yeah, but the thing I found with online dating was that if I like liked someone first, like if I showed interest in some way, whatever you did, like wink or whatever it was at the time like, you winked or you sent a message, if I expressed an interest first, they never wrote back or if they did, it never developed into a date. So I had to sit and wait there to be clicked on or whatever.
IA: Because it's a power thing.
OF: Yeah. If you made that first move, you're no longer appealing to them. Yes, ridiculous, like so annoying. Yeah. Or maybe they were fake profiles?
IA: Somebody’s playing chess or whatever, why are you playing chess?
OF: No, because they do sometimes like keep fake, you know, keep old profiles up to like keep people interested in the site, or like they make fake profiles to keep people interested.
IA: I just felt like British, it was Britain and that it was kind of reserved and people were kind of keeping their privilege and social circles closed. And they were not open to new people and if you like, tried to come on to somebody in a bar, they would kind of like sneer at you, you know, like, like, it wasn't like, New York, as it was in New York, you could just start chatting to a guy at a bar.
OF: I know what you mean. Yeah.
IA: You know, so I felt, I mean, it's about, I mean, I read like 19th-century novels talks about it, basically, sex and class and money are like all like, very connected, you know. And it made sense to me as a continuation of that, basically, and I also felt like, the race thing was kind of like, as in they were looking to perpetuate that like, if they were, like, if their social circle was closed, you know, I mean, they're even less likely to like, date someone who's like, multiracial, you know, are, you know, from a former colony, you know, or has the background. But like, in reality, those people don't usually mix, like, the people of the English elite, and people with an Irish background, like it's, you know, sometimes it happens, but it doesn't happen that often.
OF: Yeah, my partner is, is British Indian and he, he told me that it's like a thing for British for, for Asian guys to date redheads, because like, ginger, or whatever, are considered, you know, they're sort of derogatory against ginger, like redhaired people. Yeah. And so like, Ginger girls are like, somehow ‘less than’ so they date Asian guys. So maybe, I don't know, it's just this kind of stereotype thing.
IA: That’s interesting. I always heard about, like, the blonde woman in a sari, but that's just like, that's much worse than dating a ginger.
OF: Can you see, I mean its [muffled] phenomenon.
IA: My boyfriend is Irish. So it's like, we can kind of talk about colonial histories together.
OF: Is he ginger? [Laughs]
IA: He’s not ginger.
OF: I’m just joking.
IA: I mean, I've been interested in ginger guys before but it's not like a thing for me...
OF: I’m totally just teasing.
IA: It’s like oh you have the right colour [laughs]
OF: That makes sense, the Irish and yeah, that kind of connection around...
IA: It's a thing about class of like, the looking down on people and then if you're from these like post colonial experiences, you're you just see power and history and a different way and you're less likely to...It’s like, it's like England has this group of people who believe they're in power because they're better than everybody, but if you look back like 300 years, it's like, oh, all your money came from slavery and sugar and India, huh? You know, and no one has called them on that, you know, and they're like writing these racist tabloids about Meghan Markel [laughs] because they think they're so good. She like came to save them from their branding calamity. You know? [Laughs] And they’re just like repeating history again.
OF: [laughs] They're brand new and calamity. But that didn't work out, did it?
IA: Sadly, she couldn't help them.
OF: She couldn’t help. No, no, it did help, I do hear people talking about the Black prince, like people. people of colour in the playground, I hear them saying things like, excited about having a Black prince.
IA: You mean princess? Oh, the baby.
OF: Yeah, the baby.
IA: Oh, yeah.
IA: That is exciting. Yeah. But yeah, it's like, yes, there are people that...
OF: That was before they left, so maybe their attitudes have changed.
IA: They're just like, Oh my God, this country. Yeah, but we're all we're all in this shit now. [laughs] I’m just like hiding in Germany.
OF: Now, one thing I thought was really great is, that you said, is that self-promotion is, the fact that, or the idea that self-promotion is a sin is a message spread by those who are who are already well connected.
IA: Exactly.
OF: And that just like hit me so hard because I've been reading this book about imposter syndrome. And I’m in this like, sort of weird denial that I don't think I have this or if I do I'm imposter at it or something. I don't know.
IA: You’re an imposter at imposter syndrome?
OF: Yeah, it's like, well, because the book is called The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women and I'm just like, but I'm not successful. So...
IA: I was trying to figure out how to be successful.
OF: So I'm like, so how can I be an imposter if I'm like, because it keeps quoting, like people like Meryl Streep, and all these, like, really famous and, you know, successful people. And I'm like, but I don't see myself in that same level. So I feel like I'm a failure and I have perfectly, you know, reasonable thoughts about my status. But no, I'm definitely too hard on myself. But anyway, it says in the book, like, you know, you need basically, there's no shame in self-promotion, like, it says something like, maybe you think that good quality work, should, should stand for itself, or whatever, should speak for itself. And so I'm like, that is me, that is what I think. I think good quality work should speak for itself and I and I always feel very uncomfortable about self-promotion. And so yeah, so hearing that just made me feel like, I somehow, you know, obviously absorbed that message that I, you know, that's from those well-connected people that it's, you know, you should be ashamed having to self promote, that must mean your work sucks. No, but actually, it's more like, there are structural reasons as to why...
IA: Yeah, like, it has to do with that being reserved and the social circles are closed, and the privileges are exchanged secretly, so they don't have to promote themselves and it's like, it's a very, like, British thing. And America's more like, you know, that scene of Madmen where he's just like, on the street, like, I know, he's like outside the dry cleaner...
OF: I never watched Madmen.
IA: Oh, well, good for you. It's just, it's just about like, in the ‘50s, if you are a white guy in a suit, you could just pretend that you were anybody or anything, and get a job too.
OF: Right.
IA: So it's like, this is the way Americans see the world, you know, the elevator pitch. You know, like, this is, this is the way we've always been, because we never had that because the people who came there were like, the lowest of the low, like European garbage, you know, often. So we just learned, you know, you have to sell yourself and you know, make it on your own. Whereas, like, the people who lived in Europe, some of them have very old families and have been passing around these privileges for a long time. And this is the way they can make take control by shaming people. So that's, like, built into the culture.
OF: So once again, shame is a tool for social control, just reiterating.
IA: Right. Yeah, yeah.
OF: So with the, with the blog, obviously that was a bit of shameless self-promotion, or it was a tactical career move in a way.
IA: It was interesting to do the project just to get my media out there as I wanted, even if it wasn't as popular as, and it was, it was definitely cool to have it and these horrible publications just so people saw it.
OF: Yeah, no, but I yeah, I wanted to ask about that actually. Because you said there was like one persona in or there was a version of you in those mainstream articles, and then there was the real you. What was that version that they were selling or whatever?
IA: I felt that I was really saying like this is a feminist artwork, and it has anti-capitalistic, you know, content, and they were just like, Oh, poor, poor, nice girl went to the city and tried to get into a relationship and you know, Tinder doesn't work because it's bad. You know, like this very simple mainstream kind of version, and I could not get them to say it was an artwork or, you know, and all the commentators are, people who covered it work conservative people who are like, you know, marriage family blah, blah, you know, like, the it was, yeah, I was. So they could only cover it from this perspective, they couldn't, nobody would cover it from like an art perspective.
OF: But apart from that, like with your, you know, you have a wide body of work that's, you know, various different things in collaborative practice as well with The Golden Brown Girls, which I love, and do you, do you put a lot of effort into self-promotion?
IA: I was an installation artist, I guess, at Goldsmiths. I made big, heavy things that needed, I had to pay rent for; I kept things in storage for a while. And it's just really expensive. And I you can never mail that stuff, you know. So you would have to have a gallery or someone invest lots of money into like shipping and protecting the stuff. So it was just not a realistic thing for me, like I said, I really struggled to get some kind of job. So that's why I was like, Okay, I have to do something digital, it's a really a populist media, and we'll reach everybody, it will knock on every door, like you can send that to anybody, and the whole project is there. You know. So that was, and yeah, it's just, it's not so much promotion, like, there's things that I could have done that were more, you know, like, it would have been a more popular blog if I slept with 365 guys. It could have been yay more like sexy and trashy, you know, or I could have, you know, like, made like sex videos, you know, like I could have...
OF: Oh, I'm not saying oh, you’re really painting a picture there.
IA: I'm, in some ways I'm trying to promote myself by making it accessible. But in some ways, I'm really like, I held myself back in some way. And then also with The Golden Brown Girls, like, why did we think that would work?
[wink sound]
OF: Just to clue you in The Golden Brown Girls was founded by Indrani with fellow artists, Shannon Tamara Lewis, and Sarah Umar, together with a host of collaborators. They redefine notions of success and happiness by writing themselves 30 years into the future. They produced a series of videos, which you can watch on YouTube, or visit thegoldenbrowngirls.com.
[wink sound]
OF: Well, the first video I noticed had like over 1000 views. And then after that, it trails off to be much fewer. And I wondered what did they do to get the first one so many views and that they didn't continue doing to get the other ones watched?
IA: Maybe that's just because it's the oldest one?
OF: Right, so they just accumulated over time.
IA: But yeah, geez, but do you see I mean, like, we're not sexy. It's not about being sexy. You know?
OF: Yeah.
IA: So you see what I mean, it's not like viral content.
OF: Like, yeah, exactly. Because like the...
IA: The first rule of digital content: be sexy.
OF: Yes. I know, because the only videos of mine on YouTube that have got over 1000 views are ones with naked women in them. And they were feminist performance pieces that happened to have naked women in them. They weren't meant to be titillating. And that so I'm just like, people have said to me, Oh, you're so lucky to have so many youtube subscribers. I'm like, yeah, but they're all people who are just hoping I'm gonna put out a video with with tits in it. They’re not, I don't think they're genuine fans of my work. They're just, they subscribed when they saw that one video. That's it.
IA: Yeah. So I awkwardly using this media. I currently use digital media and even like, when I went to Instagram, and I really got it, you know, I really got that it was about being sexy or whatever. And I I tried to make work with myself being sexy and it but it's still like, not really sexy enough.
OF: [Laughs] Right.
IA: I started to feel like I'm not sexy. [Laughs] Or not sexy for average people only for very specific people. I'm just starting to accept that. [Laughs] It's okay.
OF: So, but no, but in terms of like personal, a personal sense of like, where you draw the line, in your work, with what you will share, where do you draw the line? Like, what's too personal to share in your work?
IA: Yeah, I think I kind of implied sex by didn't actually describe enough. Like, I didn't really give a play by play account. Like you can't really tell from that blog post that I was like raped anally, or like I just said, he did something that didn't want him to do and it really hurt. You know, I didn't really describe sexual encounters like then we did this and then I was like, I kind of implied it, you know?
OF: You're here on this, or you're here on this podcast saying that so clearly it's not a line you wouldn’t cross to share it?
IA: Yeah, I'm not gonna send it to my dad. [Laughs]
OF: Oh right.
IA: Yeah, no, yeah, I started telling my Dad, don’t look at my stuff.
OF: You’re not telling your dad, search apple podcasts for me, then.
IA: Right. I've been watching The Deuce and you know, like, I can't create content like that. You know, I can't just be like, this is my secret life as a prostitute.
OF: Like, yeah, I'm kind of a kind of a prude or, quite vanilla myself. So I don’t think it would make very interesting content.
IA: Exactly. It's like, yeah, then the customer complained that I wasn't very good. Yeah, but yeah, the other thing that I wanted to say is that all other times, like, first time sex is like, kind of mediocre, like it's not very pleasurable. You know, a lot of these guys think they're like hot shots or whatever and you don't want to, like, you don't want to, like, totally destroy their ego by telling them that they were bad in bed, you know. But also, the sexual part is just kind of awkward, sometimes not great. You know, so that wasn't really the heart of the project.
OF: Yeah.
IA: Although, you know, yeah. Well, one because the sex wasn't that exciting, and two, because I'm not, I didn't really, it wasn't noteworthy, and I didn't want to write a horrible thing about how bad the sex was [laughs] That would really crush their egos. I yeah, I feel really, I feel empathy for guys, you know, and I don't want to, like destroy their ability to perform sexually when they feel so ashamed that they aren't pleasurable or whatever.
OF: Yeah.
IA: You know, because that makes that just makes me feel bad. Because it is it has to do with, your ability to perform, it actually has to do with your confidence. So I would never, like destroy somebody's confidence like that.
OF: But no, but also also like, just though, in terms of your in terms of yourself, and I don't know, is there an aspect of your life? Yeah are there other aspects of your life that you wouldn't share or are you just a pretty candid person?
IA: Well, I mean, now I'm in a relationship. So now I'm just like, ok, I'm like, like, this is part of my system as person, as an individual, I'm an economic unit, and I have emotional needs and physical needs and this is part of my economic system. So I would not make that into my work. Because I'm protecting myself. Right?
OF: Yeah, that's the way I feel too actually.
IA: Yeah, so I found it different. You know, when these guys were just coming on to me and leaving and they weren't really part of my economic system, and they were like, stealing my emotional labour from me, I felt way different about it, and that I could make work from it. Now it's hard to make work about the politics of my relationship. You know, or it has to be like heavily fictionalised, like say in The Golden Brown Girls, where we like, put five layers of fiction on everything.
OF: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
IA: Yeah. So now it's different. I've learned how to distance myself from the work a little bit. But it's also harder because you have to be more creative. You don't just plug yourself into the intimacy machine by going through Tinder and getting on a date, and then you get a new story out of it. If you have to, like study more, be more creative.
OF: You say you like the idea of Tinder because it's a way of kind of meeting people from all different backgrounds, you know, in connecting across these, you know, boundaries, whatever, class and whatever else. But I did get the sense that you had criteria as well, like, with what you were looking for, like in terms of like, you wanted someone who would be your sort of intellectual equal and be, you know, an accept you and be, you know, you wanted intimacy, but it felt like, I felt like there were criteria you had, do you feel like you had criteria about who you want it to be with?
IA: Yeah, I mean, I wanted somebody to be like, myself, you know.
OF: Right. Because like you asked about the you know, you kind of vetted whether they were kind of feminist or, you know, if they respected women, or they were…
IA: Yeah.
OF: And did you, but do you feel like you had a list in mind? Like my mother used to tell me when I was single, you should write a list of all the qualities you're looking for, and hang it up on your wall and look at it every day. You know, my mother is a therapist, so that's what she would, that was her advice was. Like, just keep in mind what it is these qualities are and what you're looking for, you know.
IA: Yeah. I mean, there's a list of qualities. And then there's also like, a priority list like, like level. Attraction was lower on the list than being able to have a discussion because I had the experience that sometimes just because I enjoyed talking to someone, or the way someone was, I thought I would become more attracted to them over time. So I would look more at their profile and whether I had some kind of rapport with them, and then let the attraction grow. You know.
OF: Yes.
IA: Yeah. And if the, if I was waiting a long time for the physical things, and they just didn't work. Like I would break up with someone, like if there was just in the end, like, I couldn't get the chemistry or whatever to work. I wouldn't be like, well, like, I really wanted to work, but it's not.
OF: Yeah, but no, part of you was, was any part of you worried that you would find somebody and then the project would be over?
IA: Yeah, I was worried. But then I was excited.
OF: Well, yeah, you're probably right.
IA: I was excited that of that possibility that I could find the right person it would solve all my problems, you know, like Cinderella.
OF: Yeah.
IA: I could be Cinderella, you know...
OF: But and so does that mean? Well, you, there's like a image on the thing [blog] of “if you're gonna pretend to want me for more than my body, is it okay, if I'm playing the gold digger” or something like that? Like with the pictures of wasn't Madonna, Material Girl or whatever?
IA: Yeah, it's just like, the standard is so low for the way men treat women, you know, like, why is that? Why is there so much shame with you know, connected to like, looking for financial security? You know? Like, how can you shame someone for that? You know, and at the same time, I'm sure you, guys looked at me and they're like, Oh, well, you're not gonna make money. You're just gonna burn a hole in my pocket?
OF: Yeah.
IA: I think realistically, they were looking at me in the same way. You know, and right, I didn't. I never had the urge to find someone super-rich. But I think London brings it out in you that... it's just so expensive. And people will talk about losing their homes or living somewhere for 10 years and then having to move to the edge of London. And they talk about it like, and desperation and you're just like, well, how are we gonna survive? So you really have that feeling that you're not going to survive or be able to stay there unless you belong to this certain kind of economic set. I mean, that's also the way it is. And you are you just feel like you won't survive. And so you have to be realistic about who you date. Whereas Berlin is more like, you know, like there are, there's like social safety nets in place where you can survive, or people have lived on the edge for a long time, you know, yeah.
OF: Yeah. Amen to the social safety net. Yeah. I mean, London's not the safe haven for artists that Berlin is, but I've definitely benefited enormously from maternity leave and the NHS.
IA: Yeah.
OF: I felt very lucky compared to my, you know, my American friends
IA: Yeah, America….
OF: I don't think I have any other questions. Okay, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me.
IA: You're welcome was a pleasure.
OF: So that was my discussion with Indrani Ashe. I don't know about you, but I could keep on talking to Indrani for a very, very long time. And if you feel the same way, do check out her website, check out Indraniashe.com, or if you want to see the project 50 Shades of Grey, it's all archived on the website fiftydatesofgrey.com.
[Music]
OF: Next time on Multiple Os I'm interviewing the London-based artists Harold Offeh, whose practice includes cabaret acts, public interventions, social practice, installation and video art. Perhaps more importantly, much of his practice entails pre-empting his own typecasting by pointedly breathing life into various stereotypical roles.
[Music]
OF: Thank you so much for listening. And if you've enjoyed the podcast, why not give it a five-star rating? Apparently, that will help it to be discovered by new listeners. And even if it doesn't, rest assured, I'll go on unconditionally accepting myself and others and you should too. We're all just fallible human beings!