Satisfying, safe photo shoot with a friendly, professional queer and trans-inclusive photographer in London
Photo by Kai Fi’ain. The Mollusc Dimension appears at a diagonal angle, standing and holding a keyboard both tenderly and with a hint of aggression. He wears a midnight satin dinner jacket and a white shirt with the collar unbuttoned. Just visible from under the collar on the left is a geometric, black necklace. He is looking down and the lower part of his face is squashed to one side.
Photo by Kai Fi’ain. “Do you think the piana-sawrus?” The Mollusc Dimension is breaking out of that nice Chinese / Essex girl / classical pianist / model minority myth mould / ivory tower. He is shown about to saw the edge of a keyboard. The saw handle is green. The background is a scruffily painted wall.
As a British Chinese queer, trans-masc artist, health intersections, embodiment, navigating how and whether to be represented and professional hurdles all explain why I recently had my third ever artist portrait photoshoot by a professional photographer!
More photos will be added as I release them!
This time, my photographer was Kai Fi’ain who "has made “documentaries, digital animations, experimental video work and narrative films often starting with my lived experience as a working-class genderqueer trans man.”
He is calm, friendly, professional and open-minded! Knowing that I was in the studio of someone who had been filmed covered in blue paint and being rained on (to name just one scene from “Seventh Son” freed me to suggest random ideas or ask questions like, “Do you have a saw?”
Oh about that saw..
To the classical piano / classical music world,* my work and I are confusing, embarrassing and irrelevant. But I can speak in many tongues. Last year, my piano students obtained distinctions, and the pianist Anthony Williams awarded me “Outstanding” for my original composition performance, Vibrance: “What an entrancing, compelling and captivating composition. I loved the rhythmic energy, playfulness and surprises as well as the wealth of dynamic and tonal colour you brought to this..(..).. Bravo.”
It is with some unease that I mention my “traditional” achievements. Maybe I find them confusing, embarrassing and irrelevant.
How strange has been my journey. My grandfather and my parents were not able to go to university. My parents obtained other professional qualifications. I earned a postgrad and other titles and I these gave me the confidence to seek work in these fields. But negative experiences in further and higher education have contributed to my confidence issues.
Aside from this, I am uncertain about how I feel about academia with regard to performance and music. Powerful artworks can be made without conventional qualifications and routes yet the pursuit of these could overshadow or replace the seeking of experiences.
But I am realising that providing information about the labour I have done in plural fields may help audience enjoy even more the intersectionality of my decolonising intentions.
Furthermore, as I discover and speak to intersectional feminists, in particular QTIBIPOC, trans and intersex people who are in academia, I increasing see the possibility that my vision and my voice could be relevant after all, and that academia might be relevant to me.
*I also feel this way about a number of other worlds.
I feel incredible lucky that I know Kai. As well as creating his own works, we have worked together he has designed and crafted objects for my house!
I also commissioned him to film at least five performances for me at: The Victoria in Dalston, Trans Pride 2016 and 2019, Vinyl Deptford and The Southbank Centre.
I composed and recorded a film-soundtrack for Kai’s film, “Seven Brothers” (2017) “A moving Image and performance piece exploring my gender transition using the symbolic imagery of fairy tale and the structure of traditional stories.”
Funnily enough, I thought the shoot was month earlier, which was at first immensely frustrating but my diarising mistake only led to the creation of a comic video piece called Pashville, which numerous people enjoyed at the Open Barbers’ Fundraiser, via Bar Wotever.
Also, a month later, I was in a different place emotionally and creatively so the photoshoot turned out to be better (I think) than it would have been as I had the extra time process things that were happening in my life.
This experience was positive and was a big self-esteem boost - both doing the shoot and looking at these photos.
Getting my photos taken by an LGBTIQ+ multidisciplinary artist I admire was very inspiring!
If you are an LGBTIQ+ person looking for photography, I would recommend Kai Fi’ain. That’s if you manage to book him.. He makes films, crafts bespoke items and writes blogs too.. ” I am a London-based artist working in film, moving image and sculpture.”
Check out Kai’s website here: https://www.kaifiain.com
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