Holga Negatives
Handmade Negatives
Vandyke Prints
Cyanotype Prints
Altered Prints
DASS Transfers
Medium Transfers
Lumen Prints
Unbound
This project was created by DASS printing on a range of five binding materials. The materials are all items I have used during my transition to bind my chest. The images and writing are from different times in my life throughout the process and from my autobiography. These pieces are to show the pains, experiences, and reactions transgender people go through during their lives. The "Unbound" project was also meant to be an exploration of my life to help me understand myself and seek answers to all of the questions I have.
This body of work is created in order to further explore my life through transitioning. It incorporates not only physical items that helped and restrained me, but also images and pieces of writing that had similar effects.
This project is made up of five different articles of clothing: a training bra, a 24B bra (the first bra size I can remember back to), my first (and handmade) binder, my first purchased binder, and my latest purchased binder (and the one I will wear till top surgery). Each piece of clothing is covered with DASS transferred images and writing that help demonstrate my journey through my transition and overall a huge part of who I am as a person.
Each piece of chest ware is used to represent a portion of my life—ranging from: childhood, teenage years, and the first three stages of my physical and mental transition. They demonstrate the choices I made—to hide, to alter myself, and even to jeopardize my health in order to save my mental health.
Along with these articles of clothing, are images correlating with that time period. Some are transferred in a clean and focused manner—this represents times in my life where I was “certain” or unquestioning of my identity. Others are blurred this is to demonstrate the times where I was unsure and questioning who I was and why I was born the way I am. Intertwined with the images are pieces of writing—some from others and some from myself. This are meant to be the underlying dialog that influenced me choices and emotions during these time periods.
There are three main types of writing incorporated in this project: sections from my autobiography (written at the request of my gender therapist), letters or text messages from people close to me that had drastic effects on me, and pieces of writing from my younger self—pretransition. I used these pieces to show not only what I was thinking—since that is an important side to my transition, but also to show how those around me received the information—good or bad.
This project was a huge step for me. It not only gave me a platform to talk about my experiences and identity, but it also gave me a reason to dive deep into my past, and also come to terms with things that have upset me. I decided to video record my process throughout this project, which was incredibly therapeutic and also somewhat nerve-racking. I made decisions that I’m still not sure were right or wrong.
The main decision I made was to be transparent. This is my life and experiences after all, and if someone didn’t want me to talk about things, they should have kept them to themselves, or maybe they should have said things they would be proud of. This mainly came into effect when I decided to transfer images of text messages from my family members, and letters from my uncle. In the case of my uncle he invaded my privacy without permission and without a reason—other than the fact that as my uncle he feels like he has the right and the duty to “save me”. He was wrong on both accounts. I have not answered him because I do not believe his letters deserve an answer seeing how they shouldn’t have been sent to begin with. In the case of my family members, they hurt me a lot—because they are the people who are supposed to support you, and many of them failed especially at the beginning. They are getting better right now, nonetheless, they said what they said, and it had a huge impact on me. To fully express myself and my journey it had to be incorporated.
I am aware that they will most likely see these pieces and realize their writing is on them, and they will probably be upset, hurt, or embarrassed. Although I am aware of this, what they said had very similar effects on me and I had to deal with those emotions on my own during a very difficult time of my life. No one wants to have to constantly justify and validate their identity. No one wants to feel like everyone important to them hates them and thinks they are sinful and an embarrassment. No one wants to walk around knowing that their family has told all of their conservative friends who are now judging my every decision—some of which have asked me to pretend to be normal, keep my thoughts to myself, or sacrifice my identity because the alternative might be me killing my own parents. Although no one wants to do that, they made me—they made those decisions for me, and now that I have come to terms with it—it will be their turn to see those decisions the way I had to.
This project started out as every other “finding yourself” project had, but it soon became a lot more to me. In the end it isn’t just finding myself—but allowing myself to be found by others.
Passing
This project is over my experience with binding in order to pass as a cis male. It demonstrates the ways I have attempted to achieve this goal and its success/ unsuccessfulness.
Passing is presented in a shadow box format with translucent images. The images are compressed and displayed with a light behind allowing the viewer to clearly see every layer and detail. The images are ordered chronologically from my first binding material in the back to my current binder in the front.
This project was created to highlight a different topic within the overall concept of transgender identity. Due to the importance of this topic I have chosen to use it for my senior show. I have decided to explore this topic with a wide range of materials, each chosen to best express that specific section of the topic. For example, this project is done on clear paper which allows the images to be translucent. This aspect is extremely important to this project because it allows the viewer to see all of the different sections of my growth, but most importantly, to compare them to each other. Something I have struggled with is passing due to the fact that my breasts are so large. This means that even when binding it is hard to hide them well enough for people to assume, I am male. I am constantly reminded of this, basically every time I meet someone new.
This project also highlights my frustration with different binding methods. For example, the fact nothing actually makes my chest flat, or that some are tight enough to help more than my normal binder—but are incredibly dangerous. I struggle with binding in a way that helps keep my dysphoria at bay, but also is healthy for me. Especially since if you bind in a way that is too harmful for your body or bind too often you can destroy the breast tissue resulting in being denied top surgery.
Overall, this project will be a great addition to my other piece for my show, and it also allowed me to think through my daily life decisions. It helped me realize where I came from, and how others see me. This both helped a hurt—helped for the times I think my chest is bigger than it is and hurt for the times I feel it is smaller than it is. In the end it was a good experience for me as an individual and an artist.
The Worst Things In Life
This piece was created to explore the idea that we change the meaning of words and phrases by over using them. While my intention is not necessary to stop people from over using the phrase, I do hope that by doing this project people will think more about the words they are using and what they mean.
The idea came from the day my brother died. After he died, I realized that all the times I had said, “this is the worst day of my life”, meant nothing. That say was so traumatic and horrible that I doubt it will ever not be the worst day ever. Although I realize it could happen, I really hope it doesn’t.
I wanted to use this project to help draw attention to the experiences we all have, and to call attention to how we use phrases and what they really mean to some people. I want my audience to go home thinking about my piece. Thinking about the things people have gone through, and to think about their own lives. I realize it may make them upset or sad, but sometimes it’s good to really think about what we have been through, and how that shapes us.
This piece allowed me to have a mental break from my transgender projects and in a way take a step back to really look at what I have created. This project may not be about transgender identity or issues, but it is about my life and the lives of others. It explores humanity and the struggles we go through just to live life. It calls attention to topics that aren’t discussed frequently, which overall makes my art worth all of the effort.
