MENGWEN CAO, LIMINAL SPACE, 2017-ONGOING

“I use tender gaze to explore the beauty and intimacy of queer and trans people of color lives. Joy and resilience exist in everyday life. In quiet moments, we keep becoming.” - Mengwen Cao

“Cao’s newest photographic series, Liminal Space (2017–ongoing), documents the queer friends/chosen family in their life that have been part of this process. Made over the course of the past three years, the series emerged from Cao’s disidentification from the world of images that gamify queer life into spectacularized visions of violence and/or glamour. Instead, the photographs in this series linger on the privacies and agencies that are perhaps too soft and silent to draw the eye of anyone other than a devoted friend—scenes that Cao refers to as “quiet moments.”

Reflecting on what “quiet moments” might mean, Cao describes a meditation technique that they’ve recently learned: listening “for the three layers of a song” and finding “the silence in between.” There is a kinship between this exercise and the way Cao has opted to capture queer life in Liminal Space. By documenting friends relaxing, cooking, or seeking out moments of privacy, Liminal Space enshrines the reprieves where queer people rest and make room for ecologies that better support their needs: the silence that structures queer noise/music/life. Choosing to work with natural light, Cao is skilled in capturing the glimmers, streaks, and shades that illuminate the rich inner landscapes tucked behind the quotidian intimacy of their portraits.

By anchoring queer life in everyday spaces, Cao’s work refuses to see exploitation as the driving force of queer survival, and instead acknowledges the interior and exterior worlds that queer people have continually built to protect themselves and each other: “When I say I am marginalized, I don’t actually believe it anymore. For me, this is my world. I’m gradually cultivating this community that I call family and friends. And we are the majority.” - Aperture

See more of Mengwen’s work here

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