Lee Torres Calderon: Radiography
22 September, 2015 - 11 October, 2015
Photography Gallery
Lee Torres Calderon, Radiography (2015), Photograph
Lee Torres Calderon, Radiography (2015), Photograph
Lee Torres Calderon has travelled around the world and throughout New Zealand from his home country of Peru. Peru is a multicultural country whose colonial history has resulted in a somewhat fragmented society influenced by power and class structures. This has brought about negative discrimination for minority groups and inequality across communities. Growing up as a queer man from a mixed heritage in this environment has urged Torres Calderon to recognize inequality and discrimination and seek out people who are making change in how societies view different groups and communities.
Throughout his travels he has questioned his identity, how the layers of his identity are illustrated to the people he encounters and how this identity contributes to building relationships with the outside world. Torres Calderon is interested in the notion of identity as the basis of the life of any human being, a set of traits that characterize an individual or a community. Further concerns are with globalization and how it poses a challenge to identity. This leads to a wider scope of enquiry: How do we build an identity that will allow us to be part of this global village without losing our history? Will individual representation through media to impact on the survival or extinction of a culture?
His learning process in the search for values of identity in this global world has been greatly enriched from his encounter with people of the Māori community in New Zealand and the discovery of the word "takatāpui".
Today a person that identifies as takatāpui is a Māori individual who sexual or gender identity doesn't conform to the heterosexual norms. The term encompasses not only aspects of sexuality but also one's culture identity. Takatāpui incorporates both a sense of indigenous identity and communicates sexual orientation from a whanau perspective.
“I have had the privilege of meeting Jordon Harris, and the maori team of NZAF, being asked to encapsulate the many layers of the publication of a book called 'Takatāpui - A Place of Standing'.
This book captures the faces and stories of Takatāpui, shares their lives and journey's to challenge introduced values and beliefs which make these people invisible in tradition and history featuring people from the takatāpui Māori Community. Portraits of key community members such as Witi Ihimaera, Louisa Wall, Georgina Beyer and Ngahuia Te Awekotuku are featured alongside stories of people from various communities who are living with HIV. The work I have created during the production of this book forms the basis of this exhibition.
'Radiography: A Takatāpui Identity' is an exhibition that aims to illustrate my experience as a witness of the work of these revolutionaries who are pursuing the ideals of freedom, justice and equality in different scenarios of the society. I firmly believe that the work of these people should be recognised and reported, I'm sure it would become a reference that could change the lives of thousands of indigenous people living resigned to the denial of their identity."
Takatāpui, A Place of Standing is made with the support of the New Zealand AIDS Foundation