"10,000 Portraits of Queer America" Bring Joy and Sanity
| 09/14/20
By iO Tillett Wright, with a foreword by Patrisse Cullors
In America, the Declaration of Independence states that it is self-evident that all citizens are created equal. Millions of people in the U.S., however, are deprived of basic rights merely because they aren't heteronormative. Believing that it's impossible to deny the humanity of anyone once you look into their eyes, iO Tillett Wright embarked on an ambitious project to photograph the faces of people across the country who identify as anything other than 100% straight or cisgender. This enormous undertaking -- 10,000 people from all fifty states, shot over a nearly ten-year period -- is presented in its entirety in this awe-inspiring book. In these pages readers will encounter faces of every complexion, lined with age or punctuated with piercings, smiling broadly or deadly serious. Each of these images tells a personal story. And each of these stories has the power to transform stereotypes into complex views of a multifaceted group of people. Self Evident Truths asks fundamental questions about identity and freedom while proving that the concepts of sexuality and gender are not black and white. They are 10,000 beautiful, bold and unapologetic shades of queer.
Self Evident Truths: 10,000 Portraits of Queer America by iO Tillett Wright (c) Prestel Verlag, Munich * London * New York, 2020.
Link to Penguin Random House
Link to iO Tillet Wright
Dutchess, 62
Chris, police officer
Shane, 28, U.S. Army
Jacece, 21
Austin, 18
Edwin, 29, retail
Haley, 17, student
James, 26, sous chef
Lisa, 24, self-employed
Reverend Jakob, 34, hospital chaplain
Thor, 48, self-employed
Vinay, 2i, manager, and Taye
