First Impressions — Representation through the lens of the lived experience
What role can the visualisation of lived experience play in the development of deeper understandings toward the homosexual community?
Identity is not fixed, but a fluid, adapting entity, complex and disparate. Too often in Western representations of gay men, libraries of lived experiences have been marginalised in favour of simplified depictions. Visibility has been fought for and established in Western media, and we have now arrived at a time for diversifying narratives. Rather than basing representation on tropes or singularity, this diversification can encompass a collection of perceptions. By means of a visual essay I redefine the cinema and television that introduced me to the gay community. Each filmic narrative is altered by the exhibition of objects which embody real testimonies and experiences, shifting from the queer body that wears the respective label to the material culture that surrounds us all. The outcome, through the exhibition of personal narratives, allows a deeper understanding of the subjectivity we all carry within us.
