Project Statement

I See You See Me (ISYSM) is a small group-based project that offers the opportunity for folks who identify at the intersection of LGBTQ+, non-binary identity, AND chronic illness, disability, and neurodivergence to participate in the creation of narrative photographs through guided workshops, materials, and tools including 35mm cameras, color film, and the cost of film processing and high-res scans. Participants are nominated by past participants and selected from open calls as a way to grow an interconnected community. ISYSM was launched (2021-2022) in Austin, Texas, though we are bringing this to Iowa City, Iowa, and Portland, Maine in summer of 2026.

The fabric that forms each person's approach to self-identity and world-making is often practiced without an audience. I See You See Me (ISYSM) acknowledges how identity, perception, and embodiment work to shape each other. ISYSM supports the unique elements that shape each individual's experience and identity through visual narrative. Through the program, each participant learns how to portray their life through self-representative photographs that allow others insight into the environment, objects, people, and places that construct the threads of their unique lived experience. Each participant also partakes in a collaborative portrait session using digital medium format or film. In portrait sessions, riel meets with each participant in community or domestic spaces. Each participant chooses their desired clothing, composition, and visual demeanor. To share agency in the image-making process, riel hands the cable release to the participant, and they choose the moment that feels right.

At the culmination of each session, participants select a series of photographs, drawings, scans, writing, and other contextual information for their personalized gallery page, and Bianca (and Kyleigh for the 2026 chapters) works one-on-one to fine-tune the visual composition of each page, per each participant’s desired aesthetic.