Photo Series Shows Non-Binary People as They Want to Be Seen
Laurence Philomene, a 24-year-old photographer, was at the tail-end of a long curatorial project she had been working on when the idea for her Non-Binary Portrait Series first came to mind. Taking a moment to think about the kind of work she wasn’t seeing out there in the world, it occurred to her that respectful, non-exploitive transgender representation was something the art world seemed to seriously be lacking in. Laurence, who herself identifies as non-binary using she/her and they/them pronouns, found that oftentimes transgender representation in the media is parasitic — artists, publishers, and companies sometimes use transgender bodies as a token for social credit. These projects fail to consult transgender and queer people on how they wish to be portrayed, producing what can be exploitive and emotionally destructive results. To combat this, Laurence decided to embark on a project that would take a more collaborative approach, capturing transgender people in her community as they wish to be seen.
Before each session Laurence asked her models, “what is your ideal self?” She then photographed them in the outfits and environments they felt characterized this image. We caught up with Laurence to talk about what it means to portray transgender people the right way.
Courtesy of Laurence Philomene1/12Maya-Roisin: Who are you and what do you do?
Laurence Philomene: My name is Laurence and I’m a photographer, curator, director, based in Montreal. Photography is the main thing that I do but I also try to do a lot of curatorial work and directing and video work and it’s all kind of based around identity, colour theory, and queer communities.
Courtesy of Laurence Philomene2/12MR: What pronouns would you like me to use?
LP: I use she and they so you can use whichever and you can switch them too.
MR: What's your artistic origin story? How did you first get into working in photography and art?
LP: I started photography when I was a teenager, when I was 13 or 14, taking photos of these dolls I was collecting and I started putting the photos up on Flickr. There was a huge community and I started getting good feedback on my photos and it made me want to do more. I met this whole community of young photographers and we would talk every night and take photos of ourselves and give feedback to each other. And that’s kind of how I grew up with these people and then I went to college for photography and graduated a few years ago. Then I started doing a lot of curatorial work by myself because it’s something that I’m passionate about to promote other artists.
Courtesy of Laurence-Philomene3/12MR: What inspired you to start the Non-Binary Portrait Series?
LP: I was doing a big curatorial project last year called Camp and after I finished that, I really wanted to get back into doing a photo project for myself. I was... thinking of what kind of work I wasn’t seeing out there and as someone who identifies as non-binary, and a lot of my close friends are non-binary, it was something I just wanted to make for myself. It’s really just a passion project. I just wanted to challenge the trans representation that is out there in the media.
MR: What is your definition of non-binary and what does it mean to you?
LP: Well, the term non-binary is a term for basically any trans person who doesn’t fit in the binary of man/woman. But it includes a lot of identities some of the people I photograph are non-binary trans women, intersex, gender fluid. So it encompasses a lot of different identities.
Courtesy of Laurence-Philomene4/12MR: The project focuses heavily on empowering and properly representing people who don’t fit in the standard black and white categories of man or woman that we’ve been socialized to know. How much of the project was a collaborative effort with the people you were photographing to achieve this goal?
LP: That was a big thing for me because a lot of my work in the past has been pushing myself on the people I’m photographing. Photographing them as me, seeing myself through them and that kind of stuff. For this I really wanted to take a moment and actually listen to who I was photographing and see how they want to be portrayed. So the concept behind it originally was to ask them 'what is your ideal self.' That took a lot of different forms. Sometimes it was very, very specific like, "I want to be an ‘80s cartoon character." But sometimes it was more like going to their house and letting them dress up how they want to dress up and take photos of the process and that kind of stuff. So it was more like, 'hey I’m going to take photos of you and let’s interact together to see if we can create something that works for both of us.' But yeah, it was definitely a very collaborative effort especially compared to other projects of mine.
Courtesy of Laurence-Philomene5/12MR: How do you think this project differs from how trans people are normally portrayed in the media?
LP: I don’t know that visually there’s necessarily a difference, you know visually it just looks like my work. But I think it’s about the process. Trans bodies are used like a token for social cred, and a lot of times too it’s 'oh, we want to be inclusive but we don’t actually ask trans people, queer people how they want to be portrayed.' So I think it's more the process is a little different than the final result. For the photos, I wanted them to look very honest, raw, and beautiful and just show my friends as they are, and that’s how I went with it.
Courtesy of Laurence-Philomene6/12MR: Talking with the people you photographed afterwards, how did they feel once the photos were published?
LP: Well a lot of the people I photographed I’ve photographed before because my whole practice is taking a lot of photos of my friends. So a lot of them were used to having their photos taken already. A lot of people were really happy with the photos because it’s like a free photo session for them. But so far everyone has responded very positively and were really happy with it, and that’s the most important thing for me, that they were really happy with the experience.
Courtesy of Laurence-Philomene7/12MR: You said color theory plays a big role in your work, can you tell me a bit more about this?
LP: Well a lot of people ask me like if there’s specific meanings and all that and I feel like at this point, to me, it’s a lot more about the colors and the way the colors interact with each other more so than the composition or other technical aspects. There’s specific things that I like — like using blue and orange together, using pink, doing tone on tone. Especially for this series that’s how I functioned a lot. Like if someone went for the yellow hair then I used the yellow background. Purple hair, purple background. That kind of stuff. And I really let the colors of whoever I was photographing inspire me to frame the whole portrait.
Courtesy of Laurence-Philomene8/12MR: Identity politics and sexuality are a big theme throughout your work. Why do you think photography is a useful tool to talk about these things for you?
LP: Photography is just the way I express myself, so a lot of things I go through, I do it through my work. For a long time, I was struggling with these ideas of femininity and that’s what a lot of my earlier work is about — pushing feminine extremes onto my subjects. Through that, I think it helped me come to terms with my own identity. To me, even though it doesn’t look like documentary photography, it is documentary. I think people respond to photography very strongly, so in that sense it is a very useful tool to talk about things like gender. To me it’s kind of a dangerous tool because people forget that the people in the photographs are human beings with whole lives, with things that they’re going through. So there are pros and cons.
Courtesy of Laurence-Philomene9/12__MR: So, who are the people that are participating in the project? __
LP: They’re my friends. A lot of them are also young artists. Half of it is me making a post on Facebook being like, 'hey I’m doing this project, who wants to be in it? Message me.' And some of it is also my very close friends.
Courtesy of Laurence-Philomene10/12MR: So now that the project is out, how does it feel to be asked to be a spokesperson for a whole community of people?
LP: It definitely feels weird. I definitely don’t want to be a spokesperson. I don’t think it’s my place to speak for anyone else and that’s something I try to be very careful about. I can only speak for my own experiences. For me, it’s more about talking about the project and talking about the exhibition and if it opens people's eyes to certain things that’s good, but that’s not really my goal with it. It’s more for people to feel validated. It’s less about spreading the word, you know what I mean? My goal with it isn’t to tell the world who non-binary people are, my goal is to make non-binary people feel validated and included and loved. That’s really my goal with it, not to explain our identity to anyone really.
Courtesy of Laurence-Philomene11/12MR: So after the show, what’s next for you?
LP: Well, I’m represented by Adolescent, they’re like a for-youth-by-youth directors agency, so I’m doing a lot of work for them, interviewing different artists and coming up with some web series that deal with these themes of queer communities. So that’s probably what you’re going to see from me in the future, more video work.
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