My ongoing work explores queerness where performance and identity intersect. As a non-binary photojournalist covering queer cultures and subcultures, I gravitate toward process storytelling within my community. I love to explore how we get ready, prepare, and use and waste time. In capturing these moments, I notice how often it feels like the through-line linking our wildly diverse spectrum of identities within the collective queer universe involves some sort of performance (or absence of performance). We are expected to perform in so many ways and often for our safety. Our performances are either meant to conceal our identities or exaggerate them based on the audience. So many of our lived experiences inform us that those performances must be perfect in order for us to survive. There is a reservoir of untold queer stories backstage and behind closed doors, in the liminal space between performances. I love to be there with my camera in those moments — where there is time to be imperfect, not ready, and free to breathe.
