We Carry Each Other Always

This project is about queer people living in spite of an increasingly hostile environment in the American South. It is a statement of preservation and presence, a defiant gesture of love for a place that is simultaneously kind and cruel to us.

Being a queer person in the American South is an act of resistance. As families and individuals are forced to relocate across our country so that they may live in peace, as politicians are introducing hundreds of homophobic and transphobic legislative propositions into government, it is increasingly imperative to record and celebrate the existence of my queer siblings. Though life can be significantly more difficult for queer people in the South, this landscape is often intrinsic to our identities and the way we interact with the world. Leaving is often deeply painful but necessary for survival — especially for trans people.

Drawing on my past and present experiences living as a queer person in a small southern town, I use my camera to connect with members of my community and truly see them for the resilient, exceptional people they are. The people we meet and the places we live leave an imprint on us forever, no matter how small. Violence and struggle is a large part of the queer experience — but so is radical love — and no depiction is complete without the record of both. This project is a way for me to create a home and space for myself and others like me in an area that largely rejects our very existence. Beginning as an expression of devotion to my closest friends, I quickly realized how much larger my vision is for this work. As I maintain my artistic practice, I dream of having the means to expand this project across the American South, not just North Carolina, to create as comprehensive a portrait of the Southern queer identity as possible.