queer life / drawing is a photo research project by Singmoolsung (Minsoo Bae and Anonymous Collaborator) exploring queer ways of seeing — beyond the form; inherently holding room for instability and expansion; and as an act of care.

Taking queer phenomenology as grounding literature, we posit the queer gaze as kind of unseeing. Since nothing in the world is quite fixed, and everything is in flux — our interiority, our self-understanding, our relationship to the world — it is more accurate to honor that flux by holding information gently in your hands. Not rushing to make sense of it. In fact, making room for the sensorial forms of knowing - looking behind and around you.

This open studio is a space for people to engage with the materials of our photo-research zine, which comprises photographs, collages, and interview transcripts, crafted in collaboration with the Queer Life Drawing Circle community. The zine itself, composed of black and white photographs, lets the material body recede, desaturated of color; while the mark makings, the drawings of fellow community members, and the models’ words form a collage tapestry of their presence, allowing the material body to recede but for the self to be witnessed. The different modalities layer atop each other to create intersubjective portraits.

Participants are welcome to engage with the original collage works, photographs, and drawings to witness how our project came to be.

queer life / drawing is presented as part of the DECK Associate Creative Programme.