#PRIDE Notable Quotable: Jess T. Dugan

"On a fundamental level, I want to facilitate an emotional exchange between the viewers of my photographs and the subjects of my photographs. What that is exactly depends on who's viewing the work and what they bring to it. I hope that my work inspires people to reflect on their own lives, and their own identities, and their own ways of being in the world and being in relationship. Because my work has elements of queer visibility and queer representation, I'm very aware that to a queer audience, it might function as a possibility model or a life-affirming representation of something that they need to see. And that can be really powerful. For people who don't identify as queer or as part of the LGBTQ community, that same work has the potential to be educational. On a core level, I'm making work to make sense of my own life and to make sense of the complicated parts of living. I hope that resonates with other people and makes space for them to think about those things in their own worlds." — Jess T. Dugan