TENDERPIXEL TALK MAY 19th 2012
Hi, I'm Pete and I took the landscape 'Trespass' series of photographs in the show.
Richard used an Arbus quote in his curator's statement, 'A photograph is a secret about a secret'. She was really good at quotes as well as a brilliant photographer. Although in her correspondence she referred to the transvestites she photographed as 'it' rather than 'he' or 'she'. But I forgive her. Well this series is about my secret and my secret language and this 15 minute video covers various aspects of that.
Transgender is a kind of identity trespassing. It only became an aspect of who I am about ten years ago. Totally out of the blue. I hadn't seen it coming. But it was an epiphany to dress as a female for the first time, a kind of psychological liberation. I felt I'd entered somewhere forbidden but also anticipated that there'd be a price to pay. A swift descent into madness - transvestism is classed as a mental illness in America - and there would be rejection by family and friends - which has happened in some cases - and eventually violent death or suicide. Statistically both those are far more likely. It was brilliant, but scary. It's part of the fear of failing to conform to accepted norms of behaviour. So I kept it secret for several years, like most do in that situation, I think.
There are three things I'd like to say about the locations I go to to take pictures. They are almost always local to where I was grew up and still live, that seems important somehow. They are construction or demolition sites, signifiers of masculinity but undergoing radical transformation. Usually from something perceived as in a 'natural state' to something constructed, like much of gender identity. And I realised I needed to trespass onto these sites to take pictures. Permission had been only rarely forthcoming anyway. But to encroach on what is seen as the territory of another's gender is also to trespass. There is a risk involved. The anxiety of breaching a fence and evading security on these sites is remarkably similar to the experience of putting on a dress and going out into a public place.
Photography seemed a natural way to address what was happening to me. So the issue from the start was one of how to use the camera as witness to personal transition - at a basic level to explore if I could become convincing as a female, at least for a fraction of a second of exposure time - to find validation through the eye of the lens. To have proof that this side of me existed, even if hidden from everybody else in the world. Photography offers that to transvestites.
At first it was montaging self-portraits into newly-urbanised landscapes of American New Topgraphic photographers, particularly Lewis Baltz, who had visited Nottingham when I was a student there in the early 80's. Then I began taking my own location shots and continued from there.
A key question for me was how to use photography to be visible but wishing to remain hidden and unidentifiable and which has required a variety of strategies, of which this landscape-as-metaphor series is one and self-portraiture another.
I sometimes think of myself as hiding, but right in front of the lens. Using simple methods such as turning my face away or by having my back to the camera, by cropping in close on the body, by blurring the focus, moving during the exposure, by silhouetting against the light. Adopting objectification as a means of identification.
My parents grew up on tiny subsistance farms of a few acres in rural Ireland. In their 20's they moved to England to find employment. My dad worked on building sites and also digging trenches to lay gas mains. Their relationships to land indirectly informs this work. The movement from rural life to an urban one. And fields and woodlands being excavated and developed raise issues of migration and transformation. All personal and relevant to what I do and who I am, and have become.
My trans-landscapes are one way I've found of saying something, discretely, about something I mostly sill feel a need to remain secretive about. Though that sense of shame is getting a little bit less with time. Being in the appropriately titled 'Uncertain States' magazine and this 'I Love You' show helps with that, too. Thank you, Richard and also to Spencer, Fiona and David.
Have you noticed how few trans people are openly living their lives? Even in London, let alone in provincial towns and cities, like where I live. A lot of people know it's safer to keep their secret secret from all but a very few friends.
On a telly programme a few years ago Grayson Perry accused trannies of letting our own fear hold us back and told us to stop anticipating problems with people and just get out there and be yourself. Like with most things, he was right, of course. But if I get killed I am definitely blaming him.
JECKYLL & HYDE :When I cross-dressed for the first time I found myself whispering aloud these words said at the end of the transformation sequence of this film. 'Free! Free at last!' without realising at the time where they were coming to me from, a distant memory. But when I tracked down this specific scene again the way the words were said was actually less incredibly intense than I had remembered them. Whereas in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION:when Tim Robbins as Andy Desfrayne escapes from Shawshank prison,his body language expesses more vividly how visceral the experience was.
Hi, I'm Pete and I took the landscape 'Trespass' series of photographs in the show.
Richard used an Arbus quote in his curator's statement, 'A photograph is a secret about a secret'. She was really good at quotes as well as a brilliant photographer. Although in her correspondence she referred to the transvestites she photographed as 'it' rather than 'he' or 'she'. But I forgive her. Well this series is about my secret and my secret language and this 15 minute video covers various aspects of that.
Transgender is a kind of identity trespassing. It only became an aspect of who I am about ten years ago. Totally out of the blue. I hadn't seen it coming. But it was an epiphany to dress as a female for the first time, a kind of psychological liberation. I felt I'd entered somewhere forbidden but also anticipated that there'd be a price to pay. A swift descent into madness - transvestism is classed as a mental illness in America - and there would be rejection by family and friends - which has happened in some cases - and eventually violent death or suicide. Statistically both those are far more likely. It was brilliant, but scary. It's part of the fear of failing to conform to accepted norms of behaviour. So I kept it secret for several years, like most do in that situation, I think.
There are three things I'd like to say about the locations I go to to take pictures. They are almost always local to where I was grew up and still live, that seems important somehow. They are construction or demolition sites, signifiers of masculinity but undergoing radical transformation. Usually from something perceived as in a 'natural state' to something constructed, like much of gender identity. And I realised I needed to trespass onto these sites to take pictures. Permission had been only rarely forthcoming anyway. But to encroach on what is seen as the territory of another's gender is also to trespass. There is a risk involved. The anxiety of breaching a fence and evading security on these sites is remarkably similar to the experience of putting on a dress and going out into a public place.
Photography seemed a natural way to address what was happening to me. So the issue from the start was one of how to use the camera as witness to personal transition - at a basic level to explore if I could become convincing as a female, at least for a fraction of a second of exposure time - to find validation through the eye of the lens. To have proof that this side of me existed, even if hidden from everybody else in the world. Photography offers that to transvestites.
At first it was montaging self-portraits into newly-urbanised landscapes of American New Topgraphic photographers, particularly Lewis Baltz, who had visited Nottingham when I was a student there in the early 80's. Then I began taking my own location shots and continued from there.
A key question for me was how to use photography to be visible but wishing to remain hidden and unidentifiable and which has required a variety of strategies, of which this landscape-as-metaphor series is one and self-portraiture another.
I sometimes think of myself as hiding, but right in front of the lens. Using simple methods such as turning my face away or by having my back to the camera, by cropping in close on the body, by blurring the focus, moving during the exposure, by silhouetting against the light. Adopting objectification as a means of identification.
My parents grew up on tiny subsistance farms of a few acres in rural Ireland. In their 20's they moved to England to find employment. My dad worked on building sites and also digging trenches to lay gas mains. Their relationships to land indirectly informs this work. The movement from rural life to an urban one. And fields and woodlands being excavated and developed raise issues of migration and transformation. All personal and relevant to what I do and who I am, and have become.
My trans-landscapes are one way I've found of saying something, discretely, about something I mostly sill feel a need to remain secretive about. Though that sense of shame is getting a little bit less with time. Being in the appropriately titled 'Uncertain States' magazine and this 'I Love You' show helps with that, too. Thank you, Richard and also to Spencer, Fiona and David.
Have you noticed how few trans people are openly living their lives? Even in London, let alone in provincial towns and cities, like where I live. A lot of people know it's safer to keep their secret secret from all but a very few friends.
On a telly programme a few years ago Grayson Perry accused trannies of letting our own fear hold us back and told us to stop anticipating problems with people and just get out there and be yourself. Like with most things, he was right, of course. But if I get killed I am definitely blaming him.
JECKYLL & HYDE :When I cross-dressed for the first time I found myself whispering aloud these words said at the end of the transformation sequence of this film. 'Free! Free at last!' without realising at the time where they were coming to me from, a distant memory. But when I tracked down this specific scene again the way the words were said was actually less incredibly intense than I had remembered them. Whereas in THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION:when Tim Robbins as Andy Desfrayne escapes from Shawshank prison,his body language expesses more vividly how visceral the experience was.