People Just Being Kind to Each Other - Yasser Zadeh
Hope Newspaper by Fevered Sleep, Tower Hamlets 2021. Photo by Shingi Rice
We're creating a Hope Newspaper which will be distributed in our local area, Tower Hamlets, in East London. We spoke to a number of people we met in the street about how 2020 was for them, and what they had to be hopeful about.
It’s been a great opportunity to slow the pace down and think really how I see myself as an artist and how I want to engage with the world I guess.
It’s really interesting I guess being a trans person because the little ‘hi madams’ or ‘how are you ladies’ those rhetorics haven't been happening in my brain or happening to me on the streets.
So like I just wake up and I’m Yaz, I have a coffee and I’m Yaz, and I leave the house and I’m trans. And that’s… But you kinda are protected from that whole layer of things.
Yeah literally I'm not exposed to people that use gendered language constantly.
And that goes for anything. I’ve done a lot of waiting, hospitality work and even in my job in the theatres and stuff. People - that nervous energy that you get, it’s like it’s not been there. That voice hasn’t been there. So it’s been a really good time to like recharge and focus.
Um, uh yeah, I’ve been reading a lot. Walking a lot. And that’s experiencing my area a lot. Um which is really nice. And connected more with family and had more meaningful conversations I think.
But it has been a really scary uncertain time, but it’s almost so much to connect with. It’s just, you know, it’s waves of anxiety and feeling like, just day to day can feel really different.
- Yasser Zadeh