This event will take the exhibition What Makes This Image Trans? as a starting point to explore the politics of trans representation. It will explore the practices and methods trans people use to selectively share their lived experiences, and the agencies involved in doing so. Resisting the gaze of cisnormativity, the event will have a particular focus on photography and personal narrative. 

The event will feature an introduction to What Makes This Image Trans? by two of its contributors: Isaac Scott Briggs and Oskar Marchock. They will situate the exhibition in relation to the workshops out of which it developed, in which the politics of constructing and sharing trans narratives through photography were explored.

It will also feature contributions from L. Zachary DuBois and Alpesh Patel, who will be Visiting Fellows at Loughborough University’s Institute of Advanced Studies in 2021/22, during which time they will contribute to ‘Transitions’: a festival exploring transition across the personal, societal, political and ecological realms. DuBois will offer a reflection on the exhibition’s themes through the lens of his lived experience as a transgender man, and his anthropological research which focuses on embodied inequalities, stress, and trans resilience. Patel, meanwhile, will connect the discussion into his research into how artworks exploring the relationship between abstraction, the body, and (moving) image-making create vibrant spaces for transgender visibility.

Together, these contributions will create space for a discussion of the strategies, possibilities and power relations of narratives by and about trans people, with a view to individual and collective liberation.

Accessibility

This event will take place on Zoom, with A.I. generated live captioning available. Attendees will be asked to respect a safer spaces policy which will be clearly outlined at the beginning of the event.

A recording will be made available after the event. If you have any specific access needs please let us know via the booking form.

Booking

Booking is free but essential. Please click here to book. 

Further Information

The workshops and exhibition form part of Bodies of Knowledge, an Arts Council England funded project bringing together performance, dance, wrestling, photography and lived experience to explore the human body as a site for the production, retention and transformation of knowledge. This was developed and produced by Laura Purseglove and Radar. A book documenting the project will be published by Radar and the Live Art Development Agency in the summer of 2021, and features contributors to this exhibition in conversation with Jennifer Cooke, Senior Lecturer in English at Loughborough University. 

This exhibition is hosted with the support of the University's Institute of Advanced Studies in advance of 2022's 'Festival of Ideas: Transitions', which will explore transition across the personal, social, political and ecological terrains.