Meet Samirah the Sapphic Siren | Artist. Author. Dancer. Dravidian Tamil Sapphic Siren

We had the good fortune of connecting with Samirah the Sapphic Siren and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Samirah, why did you pursue a creative career?

I know this is cliche to say, but I really feel as though I didn’t choose art, but art chose me. I have tried many other jobs. I wouldn’t necessarily call those jobs a career, but they all had something in common. They left me drained, and no matter what I tried, where I tried, and how hard I tried, I could not continue working that way. I would get burned out, with no energy for months and months, after giving my all to a job that I simply could not sustain. When I finally had energy again, I would try again at a new job, but the same pattern would remain. It was only later that I learned I’m autistic and that’s why holding a job has been so hard for me. It’s not my capability. Capitalism simply wasn’t built for me, and honestly, it isn’t built for most of us. During these periods of repeated work and burnout, there was one thing that did sustain me, and that was art. I would write poems in between my shifts at the bar I worked, onto bar napkins. It gave me a sense of purpose. I later compiled some of my poems into my poetry book Siren’s Desire, which tells the journey of Siren from Siren’s perspective – as someone who desires, instead of something desired. “Siren’s Desire” asks how do you leverage desire as power, when you keep hitting the same barriers – Colorism and patriarchy? The paperback is available on https://sapphicSiren.com and the ebook is available on https://linktr.ee/sirensDesire
In my book, I write “I am a mermaid in your dreams, but in reality, you call me Siren.” This describes how I’m treated as a brown skinned person, autistic person, queer person perceived as a woman – and it’s all in one sentence. That’s when I decided I could do more than a book. I wanted to create more art around this statement. I make paintings of brown and dark skinned sirens, and I hand print them onto tote bags. My tote bags are available on https://sapphicSiren.com
There’s such limited representation of brown and dark skinned femmes. So often, we only see brown and dark skinned people represented as the more masculine person in a queer movie. Even outside of queer movies, if I look for myself in Tamil movies, it only gets as deep as light skin for women, and brown skin for men. I’m tired of it. There’s nothing inherently feminine about light skin. So, that fueled my desire to represent myself, and represent myself well. I want to see us as ethereal otherworldly beings. I want to see us with siren tails, the moon behind us, and ocean within us. This isn’t only about colorism either, though I do center brown and dark skin in most of my paintings. I also want sapphic sexuality to be depicted as sacred. I want nonbinary to be depicted as sacred. The underlying theme in my paintings screams – I may be othered by society, but I am other-worldly.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.

As a brown skinned queer dravidian tamil person, there’s so many ways that colorism and patriarchy has told me that my desire doesn’t matter, and that it’d be easier if I could just conform to serve other’s desires. But I just wasn’t able to, and looking back – I’m grateful. In some ways, I feel that being autistic saved me. I simply wasn’t able to conform, and while that did cost me a lot of jobs, it also gave me my own path. It led me to becoming an artist and telling my story. All I had to do was listen to my authenticity, and trust where it would take me. That doesn’t mean the path is easy. My desire does not fit into patriarchy, and honestly, that means it may not pay me well…but my desire will sustain me by sustaining my spirit.

I don’t feel like I’ve “made it” and I’ve had to let go of that expectation as well. As long as I can live a life where I am able to create art on my terms, and my basic needs are met – that has to be enough. But, if it’s not too much to ask, I also want to build and create community through art. I don’t want it to feel like my art is me shouting into a void. That’s another challenge I face, because I rely heavily on social media, where I can’t even see people’s facial expressions and reactions to my art. We are living in a world where there is so much consumption of content, and when you’re an original creator, you’re on the other end. Especially as a marginalized person, you feel consumed. I don’t want it to feel that way for me. I want it to feel like it is a two way street.

So, that’s when I started going to vending events and building relationships locally in queer spaces. I also decided to do something different. I created a poetry tarot deck in addition to my poetry book. With my tarot poetry deck, people can use more of their own creativity into how they interpret my poems and apply it to their life. It is a tool for people to reconnect with their personal power, inner guidance, and wisdom. It’s available on https://sapphicSiren.com and etsy.com/shop/sapphicSirenArt

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
To be honest with you, I haven’t really been able to really eat out, so I make the most of public parks by making it a picnic. When I’m at parks, I also like to dance barefoot in grass, listen to audiobooks, and write poetry. I usually bring my own snacks and cook my own food. Besides, most of the food I cook is Tamil, which is rare to find in LA restaurants. Plus, cooking my own tamil food is just how I feel connected with myself and my spirit. Meen Kulambu with dosa is my favorite. I also love coconut water, especially in this heat. When I want to be even more lavish, I make my own coconut milk drink with ice and a secret spice. I really love to make these foods for friends as an act of love. So, if my best friend visited, I would probably set up a beautiful picnic time, maybe at the rose garden or at the grand park. (I like that grand park has chairs and tables you can actually move around wherever you want!) I would bring some tamil coffee and all the other food I mentioned. I would also make use of my instagram community and look up queer markets and queer events that are during the week of their stay. Unfortunately, most of these are technically pop ups that jump around from place to place, so I can’t tell you a specific place right now. But I’d research on my IG, and I’d see if there was a covid safe queer event for me to take them to

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would like to name Z, who is someone I met through my online community. Thank you for believing in me and telling me the power of my words, and that my art matters. I would also like to name Esmeralda, for showing me what support looks like. The way you advocate for yourself and the community helped me to do the same. I also want to name Chantress for our spiritual conversations. It may not be often, but I feel like when we talk, we truly see eachother and see the value in eachother’s art. Everyone I mentioned is long distance, and not here in LA, but I am grateful for the spaces we do share.

Website: https://sapphicsiren.com

Instagram: @sapphicSirenArt for art, @theSapphicSiren for writing, @sirenSingari for dance

Twitter: sapphic_siren

Youtube: sirenSingari

Other: etsy @sapphicSirenArt

Image Credits
Photos by Samirah the Sapphic Siren