about

AJ-animation1-245a

‘Inverto’ is Latin for transform/transfer/transpose, and curiously, ‘invert’ is an old term for homosexual that carries transgender implications.Inverto is a series of photographs taken monthly over two years bearing witness to an individual undertaking the process of physically aligning gender identity with embodied presence. The images demonstrate the impact of hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgeryfollowing pregnancy over a period of two years. The images have been compiled as a glitchy time-lapse animation, reflecting a glimpse into the disjunction of the inner and outer worlds of the subject’s transgender experience.The project was driven by a desire to offer an insight into an experience that very few get to observe. This was a unique opportunity – the subject’s medical team were not aware of another case in which a transman had chosen to delay transition in order to have a baby.The project was designed as a visual conceptual strategy – our plan was to meet once a month to photograph the same pose under the same lighting and see what would emerge. We did not know what the end result would be when we started. Indeed, we were quite prepared to delete it if the subject/collaborator did not want to release the images.I was familiar with Judith Butler’s proposition of gender as performative. In the process of making Inverto I also came to a greater appreciation of the idea that gender can be conceived as technological practice, as something that can be embedded/reconstructed/reconstituted through engagement with technology. This is quite explicit in Inverto in the form of hormone therapy and surgery. This idea is also present in Donna Haraway’s discussion of gender in “A Cyborg Manifesto,” in which Haraway offers the metaphor of the cyborg, a creature co-created with technology in a post-gender world. Indeed, van Loon (1996) attempts a discussion of the interplay between Butler’s and Haraway’s propositions, characterised as the “struggle against perfect communication.”Curiously, one of the common questions often asked about Inverto is whether or not the transformation is achieved by manipulating images in Photoshop. That is one technological intervention that was not applied to this work. We employed photography as a documentary tool to track the gradual process of aligning gender presentation with identity. Indeed, documentary photography appears to hold a particular significance for transgender individuals as a means of affirming that the outside looks like the inside.The Inverto project is a collaboration between artist Alison Bennett and transman AJ Kearns. We wanted to document and share the transition process in a public forum with the intention of diminishing the challenges facing others by contributing to the visibility of transgender bodies. The story behind Inverto was documented by Australian Story and broadcast on ABC TV 10 August 2015 www.abc.net.au/austory/

– Alison Bennett

Alison Bennett is a neuroqueer digital media artist based in Melbourne Australia www.alisonbennett.net

You can contact AJ via his public Facebook page HERE

MEDIA:

Bennett, A & Kearns, AJ, 2015, ‘Inverto #19’ [photograph] in ‘Best Australian Photographs of 2015’, The Guardian, 31 Dec 2015

Maloney, A 2015, ‘AJ Kearns, Australian transgender man, gave birth to daughter amid transition’, New York Times, 20 Aug 2015

international viral media coverage of Inverto: In the days following the broadcast of Australian Story ‘From Daddy’s Tummy’ on ABC TV, the story went viral and was covered in dozens of languages

Cahill, H 2015, ‘Can science remove gender boundaries completely?’, Dazed & Confused, UK, 26 Feb 2015
“Inverto depicts an astonishing transformation enabled by hormone therapy and a double mastectomy following pregnancy. Not only is the two-year project a stunning testament to the technologies available for trans people wishing to redefine themselves, the photos themselves are a crucial part of the journey.”

Sainty, L 2015, ‘This Man Postponed His Gender Transition To Have A Baby’, Buzzfeed, 10 Aug
“Melbourne artist Alison Bennett documented Kearns’ pregnancy and transition with a series of stunning photographs.”

Cohen, J 2015, ‘AJ Kearns in photographs: The father who gave birth’, ABC News, 10 Aug
“One of the things I like about photography is its capacity to compress time and to very succinctly give a vast, huge story all at once.”

ABC TV Australian Story 2015, ‘From Daddy’s Tummy’, 10 Aug, featuring images from Inverto and the story behind the project http://goo.gl/X4zZFc

Bennett, A 2015, ‘Inverto’, Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology, No.7
“Inverto is Latin for transform/transfer/transpose, and curiously, ‘invert’ is an old term for homosexual that carries transgender implications.”

 

EXHIBITIONS

For an in-depth analysis of representations of pregnant transgender bodies, see:

 

Alison Bennett abennett@deakin.edu.au http://www.alisonbennett.net