in our spring garden

in our spring garden explores the complexities of photographing queer gendered experiences outside of binary frameworks. Image based artist Samson Dell explores the challenges of capturing the fluidity of their collaborators’ identities in static images. Emphasising the constant state of transition and renegotiation, the focus shifts to community, relationships, and self-identity within a queer context. This exhibition celebrates the rhythm of queer communities, navigating visibility and invisibility, and preserving the ebb and flow amidst changing external perspectives on queerness.

On in our spring garden, Samson writes:

“When trying to expand upon the thinking that was so crucial to that work, namely about how to represent queer gendered experience outside of the binary framework, I felt stuck. I felt that I had encountered an inherent failure within the relationship between the static image and the queer lived experience - that being that my dear collaborators are always in a state of ‘transition’ whether that be from one ‘binary' to another or, as a slow and constant renegotiation with themselves around the edges of their identities. This quality makes creating static images of queer people difficult if the intention is to define, or represent in absolutes - something which my work actively tries to steer away from.

Here, I am instead interested in community, relationships between people, and those they have with themselves. This is particularly important in a queer context where we seek to diversify what it means to be in relation to oneself or multiple others without romance or sexuality always taking the focus. These images are recordings made in conversation and collaboration between myself and those who tenderly opened their spaces to me."

Image: Kawakawa (2024) by Samson Dell.

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Gallery Programmes accompanying this exhibition:

3 May - Opening Preview
4 May - Artist Kōrero with Samson Dell, Matt Tini and Belinda Whitta
10 June - Curator Tours with Melina Payne