Hank, 76, and Samm 67, North Little Rock, AR
Jess T. Dugan is interested in representations of identity. Commenced in 2013, To Survive on this Shore started from the recognition that, in representations of transgender and gender-nonconforming people in the media and the arts, older people feature very rarely in comparison with younger individuals. Dugan seeks to remedy this absence by photographing trans people aged 50 or older. She has produced more than 80 works for the series in collaboration with Dr. Vanessa Fabbre, assistant professor at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, who conducted interviews of Dugan’s subjects. Their subjects’ paths range widely and reveal the complexities of living a gender that doesn’t reflect one’s sense of self. Dugan and Fabbre’s project underlines the fact that these older individuals paved the way for today’s greater tolerance toward transgender people, as well as those who identify outside of the male/female binary.
2015
Archival inkjet print
18.0 x 24.0in
Where you'll find this
Museum of Contemporary Photography
Permanent collection