Black Trans Masculinities in Ajamu’s Ecce Homo (original) (raw)

2023, Mark Sealy and Bindi Vora eds., Ajamu: The Patron Saint of Darkrooms (London: Autograph)

Black Trans Masculinities in Ajamu's Ecce Homo [p.9] Ten figures, each at eye level, gaze directly at the camera. Some sitters display a quiet solitude; others brim with laughter. Each image is tightly cropped, with a shallow depth of field, creating a close and intimate space. Brightly lit in dark clothing and against a similarly coloured background, captured in black and white, the portraits hold a monumental dignity. Together they form a body of work called Ecce Homo [Behold the Man]-Portraits of Black Trans Men (2023) by queer British photographer Ajamu. Each photograph portrays a Black trans man, most of whom work in careers connected to intellectual or cultural production, including curators, artists, academics and actors. The series title refers to a Latin translation of the biblical words spoken by the Roman governor of Judaea when Christ, wearing a crown of thorns, was presented to a hostile crowd before his crucifixion: 'behold the man'. The religious scene has inspired art for centuries. Baroque Italian painter Caravaggio's c. 1605 version, for example, uses similar aesthetic techniques to those of Ajamu: a strong light source against a dark background or clothing, with close cropping and a shallow depth of field. Caravaggio's Ecce Homo presents Christ as corporally vulnerable in the moments before his martyrdom: eyes downcast, wrists tied, bare torso exposed. Ajamu's reinterpretation of the motif stages visuality itself as a complex concept in trans thinking, particularly for those who have resisted or navigated the politics of legibility. The editors of the recent book Trap Door (2019) describe a 'trap of the visual' underpinning trans politics during a time of increasing cultural prominence but also immense violence. 1 An interview with one of Ajamu's sitters, actor Chaune King, also captured this tension: 'people in high places [are] working their hardest to eradicate and erase our very existence [but] … there has been some progress. We are seeing more representation of trans people in the media'. 2 Writing about trans cinema, gender studies scholar Eliza Steinbock cautions against the wider societal assumption that 'all real identities are visibly marked', which 'expunges the power of the unmarked, unspoken, and unseen' in a culture of surveillance and voyeurism. 3 Aware that trans people are sometimes 'caught up in the trap of visibility', Steinbock argues for an aesthetic practice shaped by 'shimmers [that] are difficult to grasp as knowable entities'. 4 Ecce Homo is self-reflexive about visibility being linked to particular modes of representational politics as well as punitive systems of violence: 'behold the man' simultaneously introduces the sitters while also using the biblical allusion to acknowledge