Here I Am

Over ten years ago, reaching the end of my 30’s, I was diagnosed with autism and multiple acquired disabilities. The diagnoses were both a weight lifted from my shoulders and a confusing mixture of fear, self-loathing, and self-questioning.

I had always been creative, focusing in my late teens and adulthood on my writing practice. I wrote erotic queer prose, poetry, and short stories. I celebrated female sexuality, championing the notion that females should never be silenced over their needs and wants. I performed in clubs and pubs around Canberra, Australia, as well as queer festivals and events across Australia. Sometimes I performed to as many as 400 people. I have been published multiple times in several anthologies. All in my dead name or a nom-de-plume.

I use the term “dead name” because in my early 30’s, in 2003, whilst studying gender theory as part of my second degree focusing on English and History at the Australian National University, I discovered the “trans” section in one of the campus libraries whilst writing an essay dissecting the gender binary. I read more than was necessary for my assignment. I read that the feelings I hadn’t been able to understand when I was a child, and the feelings I brushed away as stupidity as a teen, were real. I was a transgendered man, assigned female at birth.

This was another awakening in my life. Probably a happier one than discovering I had been gas-lit all my life whilst living/struggling with autism. My acquired disabilities have greatly diminished the ability for me to read, comprehend, and write. I didn’t know what to do with my life. I had always been creative, but if I couldn’t continue to write, how could I outlay that creative passion?

Decades earlier, when I was around 16, I did a photography course through school, then in my early 20’s I studied dark room practices. Harking back to those days more and more the answer became obvious to me - I would buy a cheap refurbished camera off eBay and let the images speak for me - say the words I now found so difficult to recall.

I have been photographing landscapes, primarily, each fortnight with the wonderful support worker I found as part of my NDIS funding, for some years now. We go out into nature. Even before being diagnosed with autism, I have always found nature to be my balm. I live in an Inner North suburb of Naarm and it is busy. Billboards, cars, cyclists, pub-goers, screaming babies, barking dogs, the list goes on. Noise. Visual and aural noise. It has always added to the stress of my daily life. Nature is the quiet that calms my nerves and provides me with soothing equilibrium.

Over the last couple of years I have been thinking about my queerness. I am both trans masc. and bisexual. I have been thinking of my rainbow community, wanting to champion our voices through my art, like I did with my writing. But how does one queer up landscape photography? In 2022 this nagging voice was particularly strong and in June of that year I developed an idea. A couple of months later I joined a nearby art class through Arts Access Victoria, applied for the Midsumma Pathways mentorship program, and applied for the Yarra Sculpture Gallery Summer Residency for 2022/23.

Surprisingly (to me), I was awarded with both the mentorship and the residency and began nurturing my idea into a fully-fledged reality of mixed media and acrylic canvases utilising my landscape images, as well as creating a sculptural element, and working on a companion video. These pieces form the series “The Reclamation of Terra”, a call to arms to the LGBTQIA+SB community and their allies to rise in unity to reverse the drastic climate change happening globally. What good is fighting for equality, if we have no planet on which to live?

I am very pleased to say I have secured Sol Gallery in Naarm to hold my debut solo exhibition opening on the 7th of September, 2023. It is with great excitement that I also announce that the event is supported by Pride Foundation Australia. So, after 10 long years somewhat in the wilderness, I have emerged with clear intent. A clear direction. A clear voice. Here I Am.

Hope to see you on opening night.

T.Leigh

Unofficial invite to Teague Leigh’s debut solo exhibition “The Reclamation of Terra”, proudly supported by Pride Foundation Australia, at Sol Gallery, Thursday 7th September @ 6pm. Teague stands with his sculpture at the recent Artstop group exhibition held at Schoolhouse Studios, 11th May, 2023.

Teague Leigh.