Following our recent Open Call for artworks exploring Trans+ pride and gender diversity, we are excited to announce the shortlist who’s work will be displayed in Southampton’s Guildhall Square during Pride Month this June.
Vote for your favourite on the below link, or scan the QR codes if you are passing Guildhall Square!
The winning artwork will be displayed on the exterior windows of John Hansard Gallery and City Eye later this summer.
Presented by Southampton Pride, in partnership with John Hansard Gallery, Southampton Trans Pride, GO! Southampton, City Eye, Breakout Youth, and Beyond Reflections.
The shortlist is:
Ozzy Crawley (@ozzcreates)
As a non-binary person, with many Trans+ loved ones, I’ve been upset and enraged by the recent rhetoric and steps back against Trans+ rights in the UK. I wanted to create something defiantly joyous, channeling a DIY protest or pride march sign. I’m usually a printmaker, so I also wanted to play with print-inspired textured and layers. Trans+ people deserve safety and respect, but they also deserve joy, love and peace. PROTECT TRANS JOY!
Ozzy Crawley (they/them) is an artist and printmaker based in Southampton, working with bright colours and friendly shapes.
Kristianne Drake (@cankristianne)
Tenderness of Being
I wanted to amplify the ‘voices’ of trans and non-binary individuals through intimate
photographic portraits paired with their stories. Many of us focus solely on survival leaving little space to be seen and heard. And we are so much more than our trans and non-binary statuses. This series creates that space in a dignified way focusing on resilience, self-expression and joyfulness.
Net Ember (@net.ember)
SOFT/STRONG
SOFT/STRONG celebrates personal, queer and redefined notions of masculinity. Manipulating images shared by Southampton’s transmasculine community that explore their masculinity and identity, this work highlights the everyday lives of transmasculine people on their own terms. Thanks to contributors: PSO, DG, EP, JC, BB, dk, kc_vk
Liam Leverett (@scribbles_by_ldog)
Being Trans isn’t a choice I made, it is just the card I was delt. This made it difficult for me when asked to make something that represents Trans Pride. In this piece I tried to represent how I feel proud to be Trans. Not because I was born Trans, but because being so meant that there where many barriers put in my way that made it harder for me and others like me in the Trans community, to feel like we not only fit into are bodies but fit into society as a whole. As a Trans man, I am proud to have made that journey and made it out the other side, happier, more confident and comfortable that the world gets to see me how I always saw myself.
Nyklaus Thorn (@by.nyklaus)
A body between fear, visibility, and becoming. Through layered photography and painting,
shifting surfaces fracture and reform around the self.
Fear of being who I am.
Fear of letting go.
Because what if letting go is the thing that makes me fall?
Harsh breath against my skin
as I’m swallowed into the ground,
barely a sound left to trace.
Is that where I belong?
Or can I survive beyond the fall?
Even if I loosen my grip,
climb my way through the ground’s jagged teeth—
It does not ask me to break.
Its tongue does not salivate for my taste