An Embracing

2022

This collaboration with artist and activist J Lee arose from a conversation about their deep and connective relationship with water, the way gender affirming care has shaped both of our lives and relationships to our bodies, and concepts of immigration and movement. Much of my work explores queer bodies, identities, and the way we become both objects of our own and society's projections and desires. In celebrating trans and queer bodies, we remind ourselves and each other to appreciate, understand, and care for ourselves and each other.

This shoot took place in Northern California, on the historical land of the Northern Pomo, Coastal Pomo, Cahto, and Yuki Peoples. This river is fed by a watershed; home to the yearly Chinook salmon migration, a species I feel a kinship with in regards to their instinctive struggle to survive while swimming upstream in sometimes hostile terrain.

Follow their work here: @tristancrane