Biography:
Anja Matthes is an award winning Luxembourgian/German born documentary photographer, videographer and visual storyteller based in New York City. She completed her studies at and received certificates in cinematography and documentary filmmaking...
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Jonovia Chase, a member of the Ballroom community for over 12 years, is a coordinator for FX's television series Pose, producer, and a lead community organizer of House Lives Matter a ballroom grassroots organization. Chase has done a significant amount of work within transgender research, working on the nation’s first federal research project for transgender women of color living with HIV through SUNY Downstate Medical Center. At Columbia University’s Project Affirm she aided the research of vulnerability, risk, and resilience in the context of transgender identity development.
Sony Salzman is Brooklyn-based journalist focusing primarily on topics that impact the health of marginalized communities. She has written extensively about the criminalization of infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C, discriminatory Medicaid policies, pharmaceutical price gouging and other access-to-healthcare issues. In particular, she writes about health disparities faced by the LGBTQ community, people who are homeless and the prison population.
Anja Matthes has deep ties to New York City’s Kiki Ballroom scene. She is godmother to ZoZo, who is featured in this project. Earlier this year, Matthes with the support of IWMF and in collaboration with Housing Works and Open Source Gallery, produce and distribute the Kiki Yearbook, a book project for members of the Kiki scene. The project was featured in W Magazine and is included in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture archive. She won the Pride Photo Award 2019 and in February, Matthes received an HMI Honors Award for her work with the Kiki youth.