Staging Portraits: Queer community photos at The Bearded Tit
Dorcas Tang 邓佳颖
Gallery 2
Roomsheet
Staging Portraits (2022 – ongoing) is a portrait series of the community at The Bearded Tit, a queer institution and bar in Redfern. Through photographs and written responses, it offers a glimpse into the ways queer people have redefined concepts of home and family, often out of necessity and survival. The work engages with the legacy of studio portraiture as a means of self-representation and its relationship to queer visual aesthetics.
In response to continued transphobic and homophobic violence, Staging Portraits also seeks to explore the joy and pleasure in the relationships we cultivate with one another. Ultimately, it is a love letter to The Bearded Tit — a devotion to sacred queer kinships formed while dancing, drinking, crying, laughing, and embracing.
This project has been supported by Supper Sessions, The Awesome Foundation Sydney, and Paradise Journal.