Chimera Project: Riis Beach (2012) was created in response to the suicides of four trans people in spring and summer 2012.1 The resonances of these deaths rippled through local Toronto, New York, and Chicago communities and the internet; the effect was devastating.
Chimera Project is a collaborative photography project in which trans people can participate as subject and photographer simultaneously. The photographs are attributed to all the participants, each of whom is mourning a deceased trans loved one. Each Chimera Project shoot is in response to local transphobic violence or the loss of a trans community member, with trans mourners and survivors aspiring to channel mourning as a generative power.
Using photography as a generative process for survivors of transphobic violence, this project uses skill sharing, oral transmission, and intergenerational collaboration as methods of building trans art histories relationally among peers. Each frame is a shared combination of performance,...
