The photo book Families trans* (prole, 2022), by the audiovisual artist and activist Mar C. Llop, is now available for consultation at the Centre de Documentació Armand de Fluvià (CDAF).
The photo book Families trans* (prole, 2022), by the audiovisual artist and activist Mar C. Llop, is now available for consultation at the Centre de Documentació Armand de Fluvià (CDAF), on the first floor of the Barcelona LGBTI Centre (Comte Borrell, 22).
Famílies trans* is a compilation of photographs and video interviews with families contacted through the Catalan office of the Chrysallis association, which brings together families with trans children and young people.
The book includes the portraits and testimonies of 29 families whose children have socially transitioned. People of different generations pose in front of a plain black sheet, a visual arrangement designed to create a feeling of intimacy between the person being photographed and the observer.
In total, they cover various issues around transitioning, such as, among others, education, the lack of role models, the binary model, hormone treatment, coming out, activism, friendship and trans bodies.
“I had a note. I came out to individual friends or to whole groups. They couldn’t believe it, but I insisted that it was true. They asked: “Can you show us the note?” And I said, “Yes, here it is.” And they read it. The note said that my name was now Aleix, that I was a boy rather than a girl, and I can’t remember what else. I told them that “I want respect”. And my friends were happy, because they too thought I was a boy,”, explains Aleix, for example, a trans boy who at the time of the interviews was nine years old.
The photo book, which contains texts in Spanish, Catalan and English, is accompanied by a photography exhibition and a feature-length documentary. A few clips of the documentary were shown at the Barcelona LGBTI Centre between February and April 2022 as part of the “Physicalities” series.
Families trans* is the last work created by the audiovisual artist and trans activist Mar C. Llop, who died on 25 February 2022, when the book was at the proofreading stage. Mar was already knee-deep in a new multidisciplinary project at the time, this time on non-binary people.
Mar C. Llop, a freelance photographer and activist at the Catalan association for trans* people Generem, worked closely with the Barcelona LGBTI Centre from its very foundation. This is where she held the exhibition “Identity Constructs” and provided the photographs for a significant number of events organised by the Centre.
Famílies trans*, whose printing was completed in the summer of 2022, was produced with the support of dozens of people, who contributed to a crowdfunding campaign to fund the printing.
The book is now being added to the collection of the Centre de Documentació Armand de Fluvià, where it will be available for consultation only. Mar C. Llop’s previous publication is also available. It is a photo book with the name Construccions identitàries. Work in progress.
Remember that the Documentaction Centre’s opening hours are Monday to Friday, from 4 pm to 8 pm. The Centre contains a wide variety of books including essays, novels, poetry, magazines and books on art and photography, many of which are also available to borrow.