Goldendean is a genderqueer trans media artist provoking dialogue about the gaze, queer bodies, love and social justice. A.K.A. Dean Hutton, they have worked across photojournalism, print, digital, video and social media, performance and community action since the late 1990s. They affirm the right of all bodies to exist, to be celebrated and protected. through their strategy of simple, often improvised actions by a “Fat Queer White Trans body” sharing moments of soft courage.
#goldendeaniscoming
#planb
#gatheringofstrangers
#thisisnotworking
#fuckwhitepeople
#queerasinfuckyou
#luckydean
#tenderqueer
#goldenmeme
Dean works as a sessional lecturer at Wits University’s School of Arts in the Visual Art, History of Art, and Theatre and Performance departments. They also teach visual cultures at Market Photo Workshop. Dean continues to develop spaces for inclusive shared cultural practice. They prioritise learning to support humxn dignity, to contribute to the building of loving communities and resilient social movements.
Dean Hutton has a Masters of Fine Arts, with distinction, from the University of Cape Town. They are a fellow of the Institute for Creative Arts. Their book Plan B, a gathering of strangers (or) This is not working is published in Germany by iwalewabooks.
In 2017 they won a significant legal battle around Freedom of Expression in a South African Equality Court. The landmark ruling dismissed charges of Hate Speech laid against the exhibition of art posters displaying the words “Fuck White People” at the South African Iziko National Gallery. Situating Hutton’s work in a broader anti-colonial struggle to “confront, reject and dismantle structures, systems, knowledge, skills, and attitudes of power that keep white people racist,” Chief Magistrate DM Thulare, ruled that the work’s context, as art, brought attention to structural racism and white supremacy, drawing South Africans to a “critical moment of self-reflection” of race and privilege and hurt feelings.
Contact Dean here
