What Makes This Image Trans?

About

Trans bodies are trans-formed into sites of visual narrative production through social and mainstream media. While this can create a space for the positive reflection and construction of trans experiences, it can also (re)produce oppressive norms regarding how trans people should look, feel and act. 

This Trans-led, collectively curated exhibition features works by trans photographers of varied experience from across the East Midlands in response to these issues. The photographs were produced in the context of a series of  online workshops run by the artist Raju Rage in collaboration with Notts Trans Hub’s Isaac Scott Briggs and Nat Thorne, trans photographer Oskar Marchock, and developer Lou Hazelwood. These workshops took place in late 2019 and spring 2021, and were centred around the lived experiences of trans people;  exploring how trans people chose to construct and share their own narratives and relationships to both internal landscapes and public spaces through photography. Built upon conversations around agency and intimacy, and all the ways these collide and collude, participant photographers collaboratively responded to the dialogues generated through online discussions, navigating embodiment, empowerment and the personal politics of both. The work produced showcases the everyday glory of trans experiences.

This exhibition is hosted with the support of Loughborough 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. It forms part of Radar’s Bodies of Knowledge project, 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.

Photo credit: Isaac Scott Briggs