Student Artists Featured in Transgender Day of Remembrance Exhibit

The Transgender Day of Remembrance Exhibit opened in Hamilton Hall’s CBS Auditorium Wednesday, Nov. 13, and will conclude Nov. 20 with a vigil honoring those whose lives were lost this year to transphobic violence. Two of the students were interviewed whose artwork was featured in the gallery, Tyler Econa ’23 (Writing for Film and TV) and Jamie Stow ’20 (Photography). 

Econa (they/them) spoke about the many identities important to them, including being nonbinary, lesbian, disabled and mixed Latinx. Econa is a writer and visual artist who won many awards prior to attending UArts. Most recently, their script was featured in Scholastic’s Best Teen Writing of 2019. Their one-act play was performed at the Kennedy Center for the 2019 VSA Playwright Discovery Competition, which recognizes young people writing about disability. Their writing focuses primarily on the intercommunity issues facing their various identity groups. 

Econa’s piece, “At The Forefront,” is a collage of newspaper headlines highlighting the epidemic of transgender women killed this year, who are primarily black transgender women. Econa said that the piece illustrates the way that transphobic violence “builds on you as a person” and how “the accumulation of all those headlines stays at the forefront of your mind.” 

The hands featured in the piece all belong to transgender people. “Every single trans-focused piece of art focuses on trans bodies and trans faces, what they look like and their appearance.” Econa wanted to focus on hands instead, because “everybody has hands, and it symbolizes connection to each other.” 

Econa used glue over the piece as “a reminder that the pain is there,”even if it is not always at the forefront of their mind. 

Art is also a healing experience for Econa. “People like me can thrive in artistic communities. When [transgender people] come together to create something that matters, it’s very life-giving.” 

Stow is a cisgender lesbian who was inspired to create a piece for the exhibit because her girlfriend is transgender. She wanted to “bring to light” issues the transgender community faces, as they are often erased from discussions about the larger LGBTQ+ community. 

For the exhibit, Stow created a book of photography, “The Queer Book,” featuring both transgender and other members of the LGBTQ+ community. Each subject wrote a quote about their identity over their portrait. Stow used one roll of film per person to create the book. For the text, she used a pronto plate with different colors to represent each person. Then she scanned the photos, upping the contrast. 

Stow is currently working on her senior thesis, which explores her feelings about her own gender identity and sexuality by photographing locations from her past. “These places were once home, and now I don’t feel comfortable in them anymore.” 

Stow has also created a photo series called Gender Discomfort: A Self-Exploration, which deals with her feelings on “how [neither] masculinity nor femininity fit me.” She has also photographed a Transgender Lingerie series, as well as several other series dealing with sexuality and gender. 

Stow stressed that listening and educating oneself is important when photographing a community you are not a part of. “I don’t want to represent anyone as something they’re not.”