we/they (always been there)
For as long as people have been we have looked to the past to divine the future, we are cognisant dominoes that regard those who toppled before us as educators, mediums through which we can measure our own trajectories, it was through the failures and victories of our antecedents, to which we owe modernity, thus to understand them and then is the first stage towards understanding us and now, but one might consider what would happen if they were forgotten, erased or never existed in the first place? How could one unable to identify their history ever possibly manifest a future?
Queer Liberation may be recent but queer people are not, for much of written history (and unfortunately modernity) queer people have been threatened by intolerance, oppression or death for expression of their identity/sexuality and have been forced into a closet, the last 60 years countless victories hard fought and won by the LGBTQIA+ movement has constructed a present day reality in which for the first time many queer people can live in safety thus paving the way for an unprecedented potential future of queer acceptance.
For most of queer history there was no ‘ordinary’ only heroes often recognised post-mortem, as to have been proud or open regarding queer identity was essentially martyrdom, to this reality a sad history must be considered – just how many people lived entire lives within a closet, afraid and alone, how many from birth to death never once saw their genuine self reflected back to them in the face a mirror?
Through historically informed darkroom photographic processes we/they (always been there) forcibly inserts genderqueer identity into histories & roles that were typically devoid of (if not outright abhorred) said identity. A self portraiture series inspired by genderfluid pioneer and artist Claude Cahun with due consideration towards the millions of queer people in history and modernity unable to safely live and express themselves I hope to illuminate an identity that was denied its place in the archives, creating a historical facsimile to remind the world that whilst queer liberation may be new, queer voices are not – as a future is carved in which these voices may continue to be heard, one should first consider just how many voices were and continue to be forced into silence.
