Pose’s Indya Moore on why this year’s Met Gala was ‘probably’ their last
"We organize millions for a museum, on stolen land that black and brown people suffer on unless white supremacy thinks they are exceptional."
Words: Jamie Tabberer; picture: HBO
Pose‘s Indya Moore has shared some thoughts about attending the 2021 Met Gala, saying it will “probably be my last.”
Also known as the Met Ball, the fashion-focused event is held annually in New York City to benefit the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. Indya’s Pose co-star MJ Rodriguez also attended this year, alongside the likes of NikkieTutorials, Tom Daley, and Troye Sivan.
While rocking the red carpet with a shaved head, 26-year-old Indya evidently felt conflicted on the night, after several Black Lives Matter protestors were arrested outside the event.
“Being at the Met this year was cognitive dissonance”
“Thank you @YSL and @anthonyvaccarello and @voguemagazine and Anna Wintour for inviting me to be your guest at the Met Gala,” the star said in an Instagram statement posted yesterday. “I was honored by the invitation.
“And […] this will probably be my last Met Gala. I am going to think long and hard about why I came and if it is truly in alignment with what I want to accomplish in this life, the stories I want to tell and the messages I want to share.
“I’ve faced my own inconvenient truths that led me to reevaluate what I do, why I do it and how. I have been unhappy with what my experience has been behind the flashing lights cameras and the people between them and I so far.
“The message is often: if I do not like it, I can move on. I’ve noticed that Growth and change is bad for ‘the brand’ here, and when we get sick because of these lies we take meds to quell the symptoms, or we move on bc changing the environment & editing the tradition is too taboo [sic].
View this post on Instagram
The star, who plays Angel on Pose, continued: “I had to really think about if it is truly in alignment with what I care about because I think it is possible to be an artist and a creative and simeltaneously [sic] not invest in make-believe during a time make believe is weaponzed [sic] against the truth, during a time where honesty and transparency is more important than ever.
“Being at the Met this year was cognitive dissonance. I entered and left feeling confused. But before that I felt clear. Grounded. People were protesting and arrested in the name of what so many of us who attended, care deeply about. They were arrested most likely because they were percieved as a threat to those of us who were there.
“I don’t know if we know what we are doing, beyond what we are told. I wonder is there is a way to expand on how we collect amongst one another?
“We organize millions for a museum, on stolen land that black and brown people suffer on unless white supremacy thinks they are exceptional- but not for the people? can’t we be substantially generous in ways that alliviate suffering and poverty?
“I am surprised that I was invited and I am grateful for the gesture and I want us to be more sincerely thoughtful around how we take from people we do not care about, not so we can accept that truth, but so that we can grow the heart to change it.”
The Attitude October issue is out now.
Subscribe in print and get your first three issues for just £1 each, or subscribe digitally and get 50% off until 26/9/2021.
