Queer Belonging
2022
This collection offers greater perspective on these core questions: How is an LGBTQIA+ identity influenced by a cultural-geographical sense of belonging? If place is the intersection of people, culture and geography, how does place shape our sexualities and how do our sexualities shape place? Do the locations that offer a profound sense of belonging become more than mere landscapes? Do they become sites of belonging, of resting, of non-judgement, of freedom?
Three rivers, three forests, three parks, two rocks, two gardens, a lake, an ocean, a ridge-line, a cabin, a bookstore, and a basketball court: sites of belonging. Queer Belonging shares the stories and portraits of twenty-four LGBTQIA+ individuals from California and the Southeast - Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina - photographed within places of personal significance. The resulting body of work is an archive of vulnerability, resilience, courage, and celebration exploring the intersection of sexuality, place, and belonging.
The choice of location, California and the South, explore how these regions exist as imaginary polarized symbols of “freedom” and “oppression,” while aiming to disrupt and complicate these stereotypes that are projected onto them. These stories reveal that while certain cultural truths remain intact, discrimination and marginalization are not fixed in time or place. Simultaneously, pride, celebration and kindness are not bound by geo-political lines.
To listen to the stories, click the portrait below.
