Artist Feature: Trista Marie McGovern
Trista Marie McGovern is a queer, disabled photographer, writer, model and interdisciplinary artist. Her work is fueled by exploring human story and personal identity. Where Shame Dies is a cohesive project about disability and sexuality, presented as a photo book featuring a series of essays and prose.
“It’s being too much and not enough; the ever-looming fog of burden. It’s bubbles of grief that speak words of exhaustion of this corporal form. It’s the culmination of patterns and sickly reminders making it feel like my insides are going to crawl out my mouth. It’s the risks in being vulnerable, weighing like a punishment. It’s being in a body with talents of opening others up just to further perfect the art of self-preservation. The dark magic of seeing and not being seen.”
Photo by Emma Wondra
Q: Can you share something you've learned from creating this body of work that would resonate with our community?
T: Wrapping up this group of work feels like a culmination of the unlearning and learning that has taken place around it. I learned that things aren't put on people's radar until you put it there sometimes, and that staying quiet about glossed over issues can make others with similar identities feel unheard. I learned that there's a lot more work to be done regarding disability and sexuality being humanized.
Q: Tell us about your work process! Do you plan your images ahead or are you more improvisational?
T: With my work I usually have something in mind I want to talk about and the writing can take some time - there are so many layers and deeply rooted experiences that it is difficult to effectively translate it all to others. From there I either get photographed during the draft of my writings or right after it is completed, and with a co-model that matches the mood and message. The long term process was expanding my work in vulnerability before/during/after what's featured in this book.
Photo by Emma Wondra
Q: What types of expectations for artists are most challenging to you today?
T: The expectation of content quantity > quality feels impossible and removes the depth or authenticity of it at times. With fast scrolling it can feel futile to create an intimate piece of work that develops over time, so that is one of the biggest reasons I am stoked to put it all into a book. It will be a tangible item you can always come back to or share. It gives you permission to look and to really sit with it, spend some more natural time with it.
Q: What is your advice to young and aspiring photographers?
T: It can be easy to follow trends, but I encourage others to lean more into photographing a specific thing they love or something in their corner that other people may not have access or exposure to. For me, I have always photographed humans being human, but dove more into vulnerability via intimate portraits. The work in my book is all my writing and featuring my modeling, but it is all photography by Emma Wondra while still under the umbrella theme of vulnerability in all that I do. We are both photographers and models and I am grateful to have worked together on my project.
Q: Do you have any upcoming events or exhibitions you'd like to share?
T: There are events and exhibitions on the way, but the book is the main thing happening this winter. The pre-order is open until Nov 20th to claim a copy.
To view the kickstarter, website, patreon, or to tip on venmo, see all links here: https://linktr.ee/Tristamariemcg
Photo by Emma Wondra
Follow @tristamariemcg @tristamariephoto
