Shimmer Shimmer: Trans*queer Embodiment and Gender Abolition
Wednesday, September 28, 9 AM PDT / 12 Noon EDT / 5 PM BST
In this presentation trans*queer artist Lorenzo Triburgo will discuss their recent essay, “Representational Refusal and the Embodiment of Gender Abolition” (for the special issue of GLQ, Queer Fire and Liberation, spring 2022) and ongoing project Shimmer Shimmer, both created in collaboration with their (queer-femme) partner Sarah Van Dyck. Triburgo will discuss abolitionist politics, trans visibility, queer space, trans embodiment, and collaboration as a form of resistance in relation to the creation and consumption of photographic images.
In 2019 Triburgo stopped taking testosterone after 10 years of “transgender hormone therapy” as a performative exploration of their body as a site of literal and metaphorical gender abolition. Their body and its metamorphosis became source material for Shimmer Shimmer, an ongoing series of figurative and nonrepresentational photographs. The figurative images in Shimmer Shimmer feature Triburgo’s glitter-adorned nude form in familiar art historical poses, photographed by Van Dyck on location at the People’s Beach at Jacob Riis Park in Queens, New York (Riis Beach)—an anti-assimilationist space, a communal center for liberation in a queer history of displacement in NYC. These images are accompanied by photographs of glitter as “constellations” and suggest a connection to queer(ing) astrology.
Following their presentation Triburgo will host what they hope will be a lively discussion.
Photography Network membership is required to attend. To become a member, sign up here. The event will be recorded and made available for a limited time to PN members.
This program is generously supported by the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation.