Alok Vaid-Menon


Alok Vaid-Menon is an Indian-American writer, performance artist, and media personality who performs under the moniker ALOK. Alok is gender non-conforming and transfeminine and uses singular they pronouns.
They are internationally renowned for their creative work which they have presented in over 40 countries.
As a mixed-media artist Alok uses poetry, comedy, performance, drag, lecture, sound-art, fashion design, self-portraiture, and social media to explore themes of gender, race, trauma, belonging, and the human condition. Their artistry responds to violence against trans and gender non-conforming people, calling for freedom from constraining gender norms. They advocate for bodily diversity, gender neutrality, and self-determination.
In 2019 they advocated for the complete degendering of fashion and beauty industries.

Early life and education

Vaid-Menon grew up in College Station, Texas as the child of Malayali and Punjabi immigrant parents from Malaysia and India. Growing up they were bullied for their race and gender expression. They felt that they were unable to come out on their own terms because as a visibly gender non-conforming person they didn't know they were different until they were punished for it and told who they were. They developed their art practice at a young age in response to this harassment. “Making art gave me the permission to live. I needed somewhere to put the pain.” They began to use poetry and style to interrupt other peoples’ assumptions, challenge shame, and declare themselves on their own terms. Because they weren't able to express themselves visually for fear of safety, they began to share their art online and received supportive responses.
In 2019 Alok returned to College Station to host a Pride celebration with local LGBTQ community in honor of the 50th anniversary of Stonewall.
After leaving Texas Alok attended Stanford University where they graduated with a BA in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, as well as a Masters in Sociology in 2013.

Career

Performance

Alok's performance style is known for stream of consciousness, soundscapes, political comedy, and emotional range. They remark that their style, like their identity, is in constant flux and refuses easy categorization and believe that performance is one of the only spaces where people can actually be real anymore. In this way, performance is about world-making where the audience can relate to one another with “a commitment to vulnerability, play, interdependence, and magic. For Alok, the power of performance is precisely that it is ephemeral and can never be done again the same way. They also use performance as a mode of pedagogy to teach theories and histories that have been submerged.
For Alok, living is a modality of art.
There are several themes that reoccur in Alok’s work. They unpack the dynamics of transmisogyny, reflect on the continued attack on trans and gender non-conforming people, and shift the representation of TGNC people. In 2017, Alok released their inaugural book of poetry, FEMME IN PUBLIC, a meditation on harassment against transfeminine people. They toured a show associated with the book across the world, partnering with local trans artists and organizations, to advocate for trans justice. In VICE they write, “the majority of people still believe that trans is what we look like, and not who we are. We are reduced to the spectacle of our appearance.” Alok advocates for transfeminine people to be regarded in their full personhood: “There is a long history of trans-femme bodies being reduced to metaphor, to symbol…and seen as stand-ins for ideas, fantasies, and nightmares.” They draw attention to the fact that even though gender non-conforming people are the most visible in public, they remain the most neglected by the mainstream LGBT movement.
Alok is committed to challenging what they call “the international crisis of loneliness” by creating public spaces for processing pain and establishing meaningful connection. This work includes re-imagining and deploying technology as a conduit for intimacy. In 2019, Alok completed an artist-in-residence program at The Invisible Dog Art Center, where they performed a piece entitled "Strangers are Potential Friends” and hosted a “Valentine’s Cry-In” to create a space for public grief and explore alternative forms of intimacy and interdependence. Alok facilitates “Feelings Workshops” across the world to develop transformative ways of interacting with ourselves, one another, and as a way of promoting emotional justice and wellness.
They challenge Western rationalism and an emphasis on reductive categories and instead insist on the complexity and enormity of everyone and everything. They want to create work and ways of relating to each other that are less about being understood, and more about being felt. They believe that art is one of the places we can come closest to approximating truth. In an interview with the Chicago Tribune they write, “The problem with a category is that you reduce something as celestial as a human being into a word. Words only approximate truth, and art is where we go when we actually want truth

Fashion Design

Alok has designed three gender-neutral fashion collections, which are known for their joyful color and celebration of skirts and dresses as gender neutral. Fashion design became a “materialization of the life that living,” a way to encapsulate what they were writing and thinking. Their designs were at first inspired by imagining what they would wear if they didn't have to fear violence. In their latest work, they are using fashion to challenge what kind of aesthetics are seen as natural and what are seen as artificial.

Public Speaking

Alok is a highly sought-after public speaker; among hundreds of festivals, universities, and conferences they have spoken at the Oxford University Global Scholars Symposium, Creative Time Summit, the NYTimes Global Assembly, South by Southwest in 2019, the Tribeca Film Festival, and the Business of Fashion Voices Conference.

Selected Live Performances

2014—Queer New York International Arts Festival
2015--- Lincoln Center La Casita Festival
2015, 2016—Public Theater Under the Radar Festival Festival
2017—Centrale Fies Drodesera Festival
2017—Naked Heart Festival Toronto
2018—Keynote Performance - Transgender Europe Conference, Antwerp
2018—Keynote Performance - Gender Unbound Festival Austin
2019—Spoken Fest Mumbai
2019—Keynote Performance—OUTShine EGALE Conference Fredericton, New Brunswick

Selected Performance Venues

Museum of Modern Art, Andy Warhol Museum, Asian American Writers Workshop, La Mama Experimental Theater, The Public Theater, The Mercury Lounge, Abrons Arts Center, Brooklyn Museum, Warehouse9, The Garrison, 7 Stages Theater, Marlborough Theater, Kampnagel, Dansstationen, La Peña Cultural Center, CounterPulse, Pipe Factory Gallery, Hackney Showroom, The Arnolfini, Asian Arts Initiative, Kochi Biennale, Compagnietheater, Centrale Fies, SF MoMA

Published Writing

Alok has walked for several fashion brands for New York Fashion Week including Opening Ceremony, Studio 189, and Chromat. They have modeled for several brands including Opening Ceremony, Harry's, and Polaroid Eyewear. They have appeared in fashion magazines and editorials including VOGUE, Vogue Italia, BUST Magazine, Wussy Mag, and Paper Magazine.

Awards/recognition

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