David Simon Martret & Blanca Galindo, working together as Leafhopper, discuss their project Blue Boy KL.
Blanca Galindo: I remember our first time in Malaysia, everything was exciting and new. We were at the very beginning of our own love story, after working on an intense project Krokodil in Russia. We were living in Kuantan, Malaysia, and it was all about the experience of working together full-time.
Coming to Blue Boy was kind of a coincidence. We were staying at the ECAiR Residency in Kuantan at that time. Kuantan is the kind of a town where it seems nothing ever happens. One of the stories we were interested in was the LGBT scene - it was such a concern for us because of the lack of rights in Malaysia for the LGBT community. One day, on one of our excursions to Kuala Lumpur, after some researching, we happened to end up at Blue Boy Discoteque.
That very first night we met Danisha, a transgender activist and HIV/AIDS prevention worker. We instantly connected and she happened to be from Kuantan, so everything came full circle. We met again in Kuantan, got along very well and started a friendship.
David Simon Martret: I love how innocently the idea to start working on Blue Boy KL came about. We fell in love with the vibe and the characters there very fast. In the first year, we only did a couple of portraits, like the ones of Zwan.
BG: Malaysia was very special for us, everything was a challenge - our relationship was a challenge and just surviving in the humidity and the intensity of the rain. But after just one night at Blue Boy we decided we had to come back to Malaysia again, and of course, we had to come back to Blue Boy.
BG: The second year we came we talked to Danisha again and she told us that we needed to meet the Sexy Divas and Chilli Padi. So we started visiting the club and assisting the shows as well. The Sexy Divas were sometimes disappointed we did not go to the other fancy clubs in which they performed. But we were in love with the Blue Boy, and the scene there - local kids, drag queens, gay men, and transgender women altogether, and once in a while some tourists - once we even happened to meet a Spanish officer from the Spanish Embassy.
DSM: Early on we went to the mamak (food stall) outside, which had the same owner as Blue Boy. We had kopi o and tried to talk a bit of everything with the kids from Blue Boy. Sometimes it was hard because they didn’t speak a lot of English, but we became close friends with Zwan, Justin, who was a performer and sometimes DJ, and Fazzle, who was super young first time we met him - we have been watching him grow up since.
BG: It was great because we arrived early enough to always see them rehearse and get dressed.
DSM: And the next year we came we introduced new formats to capture more action, which felt important.
BG: Yes, the last day we went that year, they ended up taking me to the stage and introduced me as the only real woman there, which by the way I don’t think was true, or at least we can discuss what it is to be a real woman right? It was such a lovely night though.
DSM: The third year we went back, that summertime some of the transgender women had been put in jail, it was truly horrible. On the other hand, they renovated Blue Boy, so now it was bright and fancy. It didn’t feel right for us shooting there anymore. However, we do keep on visiting every-time we come back to Malaysia. We felt that it was interesting to have documented a place that had been alive since the 80’s but doesn’t really exist in the same way anymore. It was nice coming back again and talking to Zwan, who we love so much, he told us we were the only foreign friends he had. We also saw Justin after more than a year, but he told us that he was not coming back for a long time because he was sick.
BG: In 2016, only one month after seeing Justin for last time we saw on his FB that he had passed away. Zwan explained to us that he had AIDS. We felt so sad and so impotent. We always thought it had been a happy place where the magic happened even when in a country that has it’s controversies. Like all the good bars and clubs, it was a hidden place where souls could come to gather and be free. But this news about Justin really brought us back to the realities of how hard it is for the LGBTI community in Malaysia. It was such a hard time.
DSM: We took our last photo at Blue Boy in February of 2017, four years after the first time there. It was taken from outside what is now the new Blue Boy, refurbished for tourists.
David Simon Martret & Blanca Galindo are a documentary photography duo working together as Leafhopper and currently living in Barcelona and Kuala Lumpur.
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