Our post in celebrating Transgender Awareness Week highlights self-portraits by Kama La Mackerel (they/them).
La Mackerel is non-binary and multidisciplinary artist from Mauritius. Their work is grounded in the exploration of justice, love, healing, decolonization, and self- and collective empowerment.
“Their series entitled ‘Breaking the Promise of Tropical Emptiness: Trans Subjectivity in the Postcard’ strongly and humorously redefines the typical aesthetic of postcards from Mauritius, more often than not reduced to the demonstration of luxuriant exoticism, presenting lush, sunny and wild landscapes that bear no trace of civilization.”
La Mackrel’s works are included in Transgalactic: photography, genre, transition. The front cover image for the publication features a self-portrait by Juliana Huxtable, an African American writer, performer, and DJ. “Her work is inspired by comic and Afrofuturist mythologies. Huxtable reinvents the art of the self-portrait to compose avatars in which her own image hybridizes with all kinds of creatures, from the animal to the digital, in order to evoke the infinite fluidity of her own gender identity.”
Artists featured in Transgalactic: photography, genre, transition explore a possible panorama of the role played by photography in the construction of their (trans) gender.
We’re celebrating Trans Joy this week!
Transgalactic : photography, genre, transition
[Villejuif] : The eyes publishing, 2020.
HOLLIS number: 99155293838303941