STEVEN MUIR

This is an ongoing exploration of my own queer identity and masculinity as performative. It is intentionally self-referential to photography, showing the negatives imperfections and edges, and the cable release within the picture. Shot entirely analog, I look to show the tangible object as both a window with which to document self-exploration and actualization, and a mirror with which to continue the same. This documentation is also quite literal, this being the last series of self portraits I am shooting before starting my physical transition, so in future it potentially serves as a document of beginnings. This series also attempts to display comfort and discomfort within trans masculine identity and its relation to other aspects of my own identity, as well as its relation to my body as it currently is.

Drawing upon other queer photographers and artists work for inspiration and to align myself within a community has always been important to me. The amount of people who have mentioned Robert Mapplethorpe or Albert Winn upon seeing these is definitely not a mistake, I am looking to bring other queer artists to mind, because this work is important to orient in a context of queer art and queer community. This is work on and in taking pride and self-determination out of something often viewed as othering; to embrace that otherment as a strengthening of identity rather than throwing it into question.

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Additional Documentation by Institute, includes other work in group show