“This luminescent record of camaraderie and presence acts as a kind of banner for trans resilience. But it is also a war ensign, signaling to the metastasizing right-wing forces in the US that queers are ready to fight.”
Movement III: Etched in Light, DC (2024) is a performance, documentary film, and large-scale cyanotype created in collaboration with the National Center for Transgender Equality and over 100 trans* artists and volunteers on the Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31, 2024.
Channeling the affective energies of lie-ins, die-ins, and community-based artworks made at the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and early ‘90s, Etched in Light, DC channels bodily presence and the performance of solidarity.
A cyanotype is a cameraless photographic process using UV sunlight on a sensitized surface, recording objects that block the light at actual size. Here the performers were invited to lie still atop a length of coated muslin for twenty-five minutes, allowing the sun to register their outlines in real time.
The resulting canvas contains the unique impressions of trans* and non-binary bodies, capturing a moment of intimacy, physical endurance, and gentle touch. This work continues Cassils's engagement with questions of trans* visibility—exploring abstraction as a tactic that refuses the surveilling gaze and stigmatizing policies leveled at trans* bodies.
Movement III, (Etched in Light: National Mall, Washington DC, Tran Day Of Visibility), 2024
Documentary film capturing the performance and making of Etched In Light
9 minutes 38 seconds (looped).
Created in collaboration with the National Center for Transgender Quality, over 140 trans artists and volunteers on Trans Day of Visibility, March 31, 2024
See full credits below, click on "Image + media credits for this page".
Made with Support from Ford Foundation, National Center for Transgender Equality, OUTsider, University of Toronto, Wilhelm Family Foundation, QUIET, Canada Council for the ArtsCourtesy of the Artist
