Here we go again has another year passed already?! However looking back I seem to have squeezed lots in!
Of course creating, publishing and launching my first photo-book was the biggest highlight of the year and probably of my career so far, it pretty much took over my life since its October launch and there's still work to be done re distribution but it's been worth every hour!! (see previous blog for more).
I also made my first zine 'PAM', which I did in conjunction with the book and found to be a lighter way to reproduce material... expect more of these this year!
I was extremely proud to work with Nando Messias on his seminal piece 'Where four roads meet: death and the sissy', where he killed off all 3 characters in an emotive performance. I made the gallery portrait with him as well as shooting the production shots for the show.
I really enjoyed working with Hackney Showroom on their first full theatre production 'Frau', which involved making the promotional images, a trailer and the productions shots.
Working as a photography mentor on Milk Present's production Bullish which addresses trans-masculine identities was a wonderful job with some fantastic results for the accompanying exhibition. Scroll down to full blog on this.
I have continued to document most of Scottee's work which continues to evolve and challenge vehicles for queer performance, in exciting, controversial and original ways. I've travelled the country rain and shine with my camera in order to preserve his work which appears in the most peculiar of places from his living room to a boxing club! I absolutely love working with him and being in his gang of weirdos! VIDEOS here
I've worked on making portraits with some more amazing people this year and intend to do many more, these will go alongside the live documentation I have shot over the years for an upcoming book in 2020...
I have talked at a number of events about my work this year including 'The Manchester Drag Symposium', DARC Sully night and VFD 'Recording Queer Histories' with Lavinia Co-op and Lyall Hakaraia. I find this exciting, nerve wracking and well worthwhile.
Our collective DARC continues to find its feet and evolve since its launch last year and we have recently received arts council funding to develop our project 'Transformance'; a practice-as-research project where live performance, documentation, translation and transformation meet. We will be dedicating our time to this in 2018 with related Sully nights.
I'm really excited about this new year; I'll be working with Scottee on his 10 year publication 'I made it', along with my own archive which may be finding its own prestigious home... ! I will continue my portrait work with notable queer performers and hopefully get more nice gigs like some of those listed here!
Thanks for reading!