LIKE A RIVER

Given his background in social anthropology Daniel Jack Lyons understands the sociopolitical stakes of  representing the other. He thus takes great care to reinvent himself. Like a River was born out of an invitation to join a youth center in the middle of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. On site, he met queer and trans youth torn between hope and disillusion, bound by tradition and heritage, struggling to assert their difference within their community. Lyons offered to take their portraits, allowing them to choose the session’s location and their clothing and pose, so that the work can be considered as a collaboration. A member of the LGBT community himself, he was able to create a safe space and open the field of possibilities for exploring how to represent oneself. Like a River—named in tribute to Amazon-born poet Thiago de Mello—became an emancipatory space for a queer youth struggling to exist.

 

With support from Loose Joints (Marseille, France).

Born 1990 in Paris, France.

Lives and works between Paris, Marseille, and London, France/England.

 

Taous Dahmani is a French, British and Algerian art historian, writer and curator specialising in photography. Her academic research focuses on the photographic representation of struggles and the struggle for photographic representations. Her projects mainly involve the links between photography and politics — such as the visual culture of protests, migratory narratives and intersectional feminist discourses. She has published in various scientific journals and art magazines. She regularly gives papers in academic conferences and holds public ‘in-conversations’ with photographers. Taous Dahmani is also editor and content advisor at The Eyes Publishing, a trustee of the Photo Oxford Festival, and on the editorial board of MAI: Visual Culture and Feminism.

Born 1981 in Los Angeles, United States.

Lives and works in Los Angeles, United States.

Daniel Jack Lyons is an American artist and anthropologist whose work focuses largely on marginalized youth, whether occupying spaces on society’s periphery or in the face of conflict. He has exhibited his work internationally, most recently in Los Angeles, New York, Milan, Amsterdam, Warsaw, London, and Mozambique. His work has appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, i-D, The New Yorker, and Vogue Italia.