DESCRIPTION

Queerness and death are interwoven in a frayed burial shroud. Through the rips of this tattered fabric, we witness queer, trans, and gender non-conforming people exiled from family units and shunned by their communities, while simultaneously confronting an oblivion of health disparities: AIDS, structural discrimination, state violence, physical assault, suicide, and murder. Though all non-heteronormative individuals face these terrors, trans women of color are the most vulnerable to harm.

Filmed in a graveyard and using in-camera double exposure techniques, the queers in Leather Graves defy the inherent asphyxiation of the burial shroud by devouring candy-coated blossoms in acts of self-preservation and defiance.

REFERENCES / RECOMMENDATIONS

Atmospheres of Violence. Eric Stanley, 2021.

Call Out Queen Zine: Mark Aguhar. Edited by Juana Peralta & Roy Pérez, 2010 - 2012.

Is the Rectum a Grave? Leo Bersani, 1987.

Let the Record Show: A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987 - 1993. Sarah Schulman, 2022.

October, 1984. Arthur Johnson Weiss, 2016.

Queer Youth are Five Times More Likely to Die by Suicide. Andrea Gibson, 2021.

Stone Butch Blues. Leslie Feinberg, 1993.

Time is the Thing a Body Moves Through. T Fleischmann, 2019.

“Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.). Felix Gonzalez-Torres, 1991.