Faculty of Arts & Science

Visual and Critical Studies

Amaaya Dasgupta

Alien Here, a Tale of Becoming in Nine Parts

A creative narrative zine based on Sarah Ahmed’s Feminism is Sensational. It tells the story of an alien creature, that is not born, but must build itself. There is no map or plan for it to follow, it has no one to look to, and thus does not implicitly know what to do. As it builds itself it goes through the stages that Ahmed describes as 1. Sensory Wrong, 2. Feminist Consciousness, 3. Problems with Names, 4. Becoming the Problem, and 5. Alienation as Sensation.

“Excerpt: I.I begin unknown and weightless my skin is sound, my limbs water Here, we are not born, we begin, we must become becoming, my limbs like cilia, they move through space becoming, my limbs like cilia, they move through time I barely am, and I do not know how to become – I learn quickly that my limbs take the shape of time, not the other way around I learn quickly that I must take shape too, what is my form? Here, there is no one I can follow, I have begun, I must become by myself ”