Photo: Carl Stevens/WBZ NewsRadio
ROXBURY, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Roxbury-based photographer Michelle Shapiro is using her work to disrupt and challenge the concept of belonging with her first solo exhibit, "Ways of Making People Disappear."
"All of the pictures depict queer and trans individuals just living, just doing a normal thing. You know, riding bikes, being in their kitchen, swimming," said Shapiro. "And then I make a second picture where I remove the person from the frame and you just see the emptiness."
The exhibit, currently on display at Boston City Hall, explores the lack of safety protections for certain groups and demographics through diptychs. According to the Williams Institute at UCLA Law, LGBT people are five times more likely to experience violent hate crimes than non-LGBT people.
"I started this project two years ago when I saw on the news about O'Shae Sibley being killed for being queer in New York and I thought about visibility and about how — can't we just live?"
Shapiro hopes the exhibit, which ends July 18, will highlight the literal and figurative erasure of queer lives. This year alone, the ACLU tracked 339 anti-LGBT bills across the U.S.
"It's a visual reminder of what's at stake in the political climate now and always when we target one group and say you can't do that, you can't be that."
WBZ NewsRadio’s Carl Stevens (@CarlWBZ) reports.