Private Story
2021 IWMF Anja Niedringhaus Courage in Photojournalism Award
By looking into the intimate, subtle strategies of care and survival of the queer community of Puerto Rico, the projects I’ve developed are often a reflection of my experiences. As a non-binary queer photographer, I see myself in the longings, fears, yearnings, and dreams of the people I photograph. In the past year, I’ve concentrated my work on two projects that report on the mechanisms of community, safety, and healing during the coronavirus pandemic for transgender youth and sex workers.
The first project “Navigating a Pandemic with Grace” reports what self-care looks like for a community whose friends become chosen family. Isolation as a public health mecanism can be a triggering strategy for those who have already faced enstrangement from their biological family to claim their queer identities. Understanding this reality, the piece explores family relations among members of the queer community who have found a home in House of Grace, a house ran by transgender activist and poet María José. This piece was produced in collaboration with journalist Alejandra Rosa and Magnum Foundation for TIME.
The second project “Island Putxs” focuses on how sex workers cope with economic hardship and create mutual aid networks to support and protect each other from labor discrimination, violence, and even, trafficking. The criminalization of sex work means that they are not offered labor protections, access to Covid-19 economic assistance, and are more at risk of being detained and becoming victims of police violence. The role of mutual aid becomes indispensable to survival for both sex workers that have been a long-time in the industry to those who have joined since the pandemic began. This piece was produced with the support of Magnum Foundation for The Nation and was selected as a finalist for the NOOR Stanley Greene Fellowship and Legacy Prize.
In Anja’s spirit and values, both projects highlight the beauty, affection, and kinship that exists amid crisis and hardship for marginalized communities in Puerto Rico.
To report on queerness in the Caribbean, ensuring an ethical and sensitive practice, requires a direct collaboration between participants and photojournalists, as they become writers and editors of their own stories. It requires a methodology of unlearning and creating a reporting style that accommodates the needs, boundaries, and experiences of the people we photograph and collaborate with.
Like Anja, to tell these stories with my camera and my heart I am able to celebrate our communities. In a country where to merely exist fully as who we are can be a death sentence, documenting our narratives and existence is courageous.
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