Bollywouldn’t is a balm to the displacement of diaspora. This major commission echoes TextaQueen’s enduring practice of connecting with communities using texta as a mechanism to bring people together.

Through portraiture, photography, mural painting, and projection, Bollywouldn’t presents decolonial narratives and the reclamation of power and space by South Asian diaspora. TextaQueen’s portraits of queer and trans South Asian community have been digitally mapped onto buildings in and around London, creating the illusion that they exist as actual murals on a monumental scale against colonial structures.

 Bollywouldn’t deconstructs all the “-isms” in the Bollywood genre, giving agency back to South Asians marginalised within our cultures, particularly through sexuality and gender identities. 

TextaQueen: Bollywouldn’t, presented at 4a Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, is the inaugural recipient of the Copyright Agency Partnerships commission an annual series to support major commissions for mid-career and established visual artists in partnership with leading cultural organisations around (so-called) Australia.