Trans* Inter* bodies that queer: art as activism

Abstract

A ‘show and tell’ presentation that is as political as it is personal, Del LaGrace Volcano shares both process and the products from 30 years of real life experience re-presenting images made in collaboration with queer subjects from the communities herm belongs to.

Biography

Del LaGrace Volcano (formerly known as Della Grace), was born in California 1957, Year of the Fire Rooster. Volcano is considered one of the pioneers of queer photography and is a regular contributor to academic publications, television programmes and film on visual art and queer and feminist theory.

Volcano, as Della Grace, studies photography at the San Francisco Art Institute in the late 1970s before gaining an MA in Photography Studies at the University of Derby in 1992. Della Grace/Del LaGrace Volcano have produced five photographic monographs: Love Bites, 1991, a study of lesbian sex culture which caused major controversy upon initial publication – Customs & Excise in the USA prevented it from entering the country. In the UK it was sold in mainstream but not lesbian or gay bookshops. The Drag King Book, 1999, (in collaboration with Judith Halberstam) is an exploration of drag king culture in both the USA and Europe, whilst Sublime Mutations, 2000, (forward by Jay Prosser) is a reprospective of Volcano’s photographic work from the 1990s. Sex Works, 2005, (afterward by Beatriz Preciado) explicitly examines the history of sex in the queer scene and Femmes of Power, 2008, (in collaboration with the Swedish academic Ulrika Dahl), is the first photographic monograph that celebrates queer and alternative expressions of femininity in the USA and Europe.

Volcano’s latest (and greatest) role in life is being a ‘MaPa’ to Mike Alexis Volcano.