Transmutation, Part II: the unbelievers
The second half of Transmutation involves collecting the stories and constructing portraits of others who, like myself, grew up in a radically religious environment and later knowingly (and often painfully) left it. From both my early familial experiences and more recent adult ones of making a life in present-day America, I've watched as evangelicals occupy the space of the loudest voice in the room and that of the political agenda of one of our two main voting parties. I am interested in featuring the voices and experiences of those whose pictures—either literally or figuratively—have been turned towards the wall by those who think and believe differently, whose worldviews cannot find room for those not their own. These voices, and their stories of negative epiphanies of when they knew that this was not their path, are almost never given expression or a place to exist. The portraits I make of these individuals from the stories that they share with me will make a space for those voices to be heard.