My name is Laurence Philomene. I’m a trans photographer, curator and director working around themes of queerness, identity, and colour theory. I’m a triple Gemini and I spend most of my days answering emails and cuddling with my foster kitty.

Lived experiences, my friends, people who are themselves to the fullest, odd colour combinations.

I wouldn’t be where I am today without the Internet, and that’s not an understatement by any means – my entire career is due to it. I started journaling online when I was eleven. Basically, as soon as I knew what a blog was, I made one and haven’t stopped since. In my teen years, I found a community of fellow young photographers online (on Flickr, then Tumblr) and it shaped my vision as an artist immensely. I’d spend my afternoons after school taking photos and then my nights editing and posting my work and getting feedback from my peers; that was my coming-of-age experience.
A lot of these people I grew up with online are making amazing work now and getting a lot of recognition; people like Michael Bailey-Gates, Eleanor Hardwick, or Olivia Bee. I think there’s also a duality for me when it comes to existing on the Internet: it both keeps me going and, at the same time, it terrifies me because I hate the feeling of people looking at me, knowing about me. So I just have this weird impulse to constantly publish myself online yet at the same time it’s something that’s very stressful to me.

It just feels right. I also like the idea of orange in art because it’s a very sporty colour and I like taking it outside of that context. I wanted to dye my hair orange when I was kid and ever since then I’ve just felt at home with that colour. In my work, I like to use colour as a marker for identity, so whenever there’s orange in a picture there’s a little bit of me.

I started shooting Me vs Others in 2014 at a time when I was receiving a lot of harassment from men online. I wanted to find a way to continue taking self-portraits without having to put my body in the images, so that’s how it started. The anonymity reflects that desire but it’s also because I wanted the images to act as a trompe l’oeil, so the viewer wouldn’t be sure if the person in the image is or isn’t me. Over time, the series has evolved into an exploration of a shifting self-image, the creation of the self, the idea of identity as something that’s unstable.

I think it’s because I’m a huge perfectionist and I want to control all the elements of the image in terms of colour, composition, etc. and it’s easier to do so if there’s not too much going on. I also like to create a sense of timelessness as much as possible.

I think so. I don’t think ‘pressure’ to be political is a bad thing though, I think using your platform as an artist to speak up about important issues is a great thing/something we should all do when we have the energy to. Personally, I think a lot of my work is not necessarily created with a political meaning in mind; the meaning comes over time and has to do with the context in which the work was created. A lot of my existence as a queer/non-binary chronically ill person is political by definition so my work reflects that.

I don’t know, although I hope so. But I think it’s important to look at diversity beyond just representation – it shouldn’t be just about brands using certain models, it should be about them actively hiring artists with marginalized identities and doing so because they create great, important work, not just because it’s good for the brand’s image. I am tired of brands using marginalized identities as a selling point without real action for change.

I mean, it is a series of portraits, obviously. But for me, I’d say it’s closer to documentary than most of my previous work because it’s about photographing people (hopefully) the way they see themselves. It’s a different approach than just imagining whatever I want and using a model to fulfil that image in my head, it’s more about listening to the subjects, creating a dialogue with them.

I think snacks are really photogenic. Photography is my main thing but I do snack reviews on the side. I don’t feel any guilt over it, but I love anything honeydew or grapefruit flavoured.

I think brands are starting to see the resale value of ‘cute’ and ‘soft’ imagery for sure. Years ago, when I was in school, I was really into making everything pink and my teachers would repeatedly tell me that that wouldn’t sell, but now it’s everywhere. For me, I feel like it’s something I’ve explored a lot and I’m at a point where I’m starting to move away from that. I want to create imagery that’s always as honest as possible, that’s mostly what matters to me. Lately, I’m drawn to more bold colours. Honesty and care are always going to be important though.

Honestly, one of the biggest challenges in any project I work on is funding. Everything I have done, whether it’s my own photo projects or curatorial projects, I’ve done it without funding, so it’s a lot of free labour for everyone involved. Right now, I’m taking a bit of a break from curating to focus on my own photo projects, but I’ve got an ongoing web series where I interview young artists working in different fields, you can see that here & I am also working on a solo exhibition of my series “me vs others” which will run starting November 8 at The Letter Bet in Montreal.