Stories of expressions of trans, gender fluid, non-binary, Two Spirit, and other diverse gender identities circulate widely, adding to a complex and oft-times challenging web of shifting societal responses to gender. My photographic eye is guided by an aesthetic of simplicity, distillation & clarity. I want to apply this eye to make visible the many ways we read photographs and their subject matter (imagined and real) but particularly via a collaborative process as filtered through the voices of the people who posed for these photographs.
Transgender identification, representation and image dissemination increasingly occupy the collective imagination and are reinforced by media headlines. Even as more and more trans, gender fluid, non-binary, and Two Spirit people are coming out in the public eye, the act of realizing/representing/revealing/ exposing/ exhibiting oneself through photography is a brave act, a form of defiance for a new wave of gender fluid pioneers reclaiming a broader live presence and virtual presence via social media. In the process, difference is being normalized.
Blake Little