Diego Maeso
Hi Diego, tell us a bit about yourself and the work you do!Hello! I am a trans documentary and portrait photography artist based in Bristol, UK. My work is about exploring my identity through gender family heritage, as well as documenting the LGBTQ+ community in nightlife events like drag shows, clubs and festivals.
Gender and identity are the main topics of my work. My perspective on my art is subjective and it is influenced by my own identity as a non-binary person. My work doesn't fit in a singular category, the same way I don't fit in the dichotomy of gender.
As a bisexual and non binary person finding a community where I belong and I can be myself has been life changing. I feel it’s important to not only document but celebrate people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. I want to photograph people in a way that brings joy to them.
Which artists have influenced your thinking, photographing, and career path?I would say that Nan Goldin, Soraya Zaman, Claude Cahun and Jess T. Dugan have been very influential in my work. I started to take self portraits before knowing Claude Cahun, but seeing their work definitely helped me to give sense to my early photographs and shaped the new self portraits I made. From Nan Goldin I learnt the importance of intimacy and being involved in the community you’re photographing. Soraya Zaman and Jess T. Dugan’s photographs bring me so much joy and positive trans representation. I love how they work in their long term projects and the connection they have within the LGBTQ+ community.
On a personal level, I also have been influenced by the artists in my family. My grandmother and aunt influenced my way of painting, which is using bright and saturated colours, this is also part of some of my photographic work. Both my grandfathers were amateur photographers and I inherited my father’s family photographic archive.
Has your gender identity changed the way you photograph? Do you have an emotional connection to that you like to explore?My gender does influence the way I photograph, I wouldn't say change though. My style evolves and changes with me, but it’s not like my photography came first and then my gender changed it, both my art and my gender have grown together with me. There’s always an emotional connection in everything I do, most of the time is related to my gender, but it’s more complex than that. My family and my relationships are a big part of who I am and that is shown in my projects too.
Pom Pom Drag 2019
DRAG
Drag has become more popular in our society, however the drag shown on television or magazines is not an accurate representation of what is really happening, it is only a small part of it. Drag is not longer cis (people who are not trans) gay men doing female impersonations, it has never been really, but all the drag artists that does not fit in this category have been forgotten.
Drag kings, drag monsters or women being drag queens are not on the mass media, at least not in the same terms, but they exist and they are a very important part of the drag scene. Drag is not only an entertainment, it also represents a safe space where you explore gender and identity, to subvert gender stereotypes. Trans and non binary people are an important part of the drag scene and so are they in this project.
I am myself part of the drag community. I started to do it more than 3 years ago, but I really got involved in the scene when I moved to the UK in 2017. As I am part of the drag scene I want to show the complexity of drag through this series of portraits. This project started in October 2018 and it is still in process. I have been shooting in Bath, Bristol, London, Birmingham, Surrey and Ross-on-Wye.
The main purpose of the project is to celebrate drag and drag artists in its complexity beyond the mainstream. I want to let people know the diversity and complexity of the art of drag. Sometimes the line between reality and performance is not always so clear, there are points where fact and fiction meet. Cinema and theatre have influenced my photography in terms of lighting and scenarios.
GENDER FLUID
When did you realise you were trans?
Are you a boy or a girl? Are you sure?
Why didn't you say it before?
But you were pretty as a girl.
If you like boys why do you want to become one?
Wouldn't be easier if you lived as a girl?
What is in your pants?
Did you get the surgery?
Why do you want to change your sex?
If you are a boy, why do you paint your nails and use makeup?
What is this non binary nonsense?
I only see men and women.
Why can't you be normal?
Are you transitioning because all of your friends are trans?
All these new “genders” have just been invented by millennials.
These are all said to trans people.
I don't have to explain why I am who I am.
Trans and non binary people have always existed and we are going to be here even if there are people that don't like or understand us.
We don't owe you anything.
Are all these pictures part of my identity?
Which of them are real?
Who I really am?
To all the cis people who are reading this, who are you?
Are you sure about your gender?
How do you know?
SOMOS EL TIEMPO QUE NOS QUEDA (WE ARE THE TIME WE HAVE LEFT)
This is a very personal project and very different from Gender Fluid from a visual point of view, although gender is at the centre of it too. This work is a long term project that brings together photos of my own archive and my family archive. It's about my transition, but there’s no before and after storyline. It’s also about my connection with my family in terms of my gender.
