Popular art, gender, and the invisible: relational sapphism as aesthetic resistance.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46661/ambigua.12317Keywords:
relational sapphism, popular art, queer aesthetics, invisibility, gender, care, affective resistance, representationAbstract
This article explores the aesthetic forms of resistance emerging from relational sapphism within popular art. Drawing on gender theory, visual culture studies, and queer aesthetics, it investigates how sapphic bonds—affective, friendly, romantic—are represented, encoded, and shared in artistic practices often deemed "minor": fanfiction, zines, digital illustrations, and social media videos. Far from overt militancy, these expressions develop a politics of sensibility grounded in tenderness, care, and connection. The analysis reveals an alternative regime of visibility: discreet, fragmented, yet deeply subversive. Relational sapphism, as a politics of aesthetic linking, suggests a subtle but radical reconfiguration of the gaze, queer memory, and collective action.
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