My project titled ‘Otherness’ is an exploration into how the pandemic has affected alternative and Queer communities in London using the medium of photography. I am bringing awareness to the thoughts and feelings that many people within these communities have felt over the past year through interviews and portraiture. The sense of family and belonging has been taken away due to safe meeting places being closed. The purpose of the portraits was to take them out of their context of being in a club or bar or other safe queer space and place them into nothingness.
I have had a deep interest in the obscure my whole life and this has developed over time in my work. Nick Knight’s Skinhead book and Walt Paper’s book titled New York Club Kids inspired my goal of immortalising the subcultures around me. I also feel connected to alternative and queer communities. Many people in society look down on people that are different even when it feels as though the stigma is fading. I am exploring the issues that come along with otherness through my body of work.
Giving people their own voice through the project is part of educating people that still have negative thoughts about otherness. Giving people their own voice through the images and interviews was necessary to educate people on these subcultures and their stories about how they have been affected by the pandemic. Living through the pandemic and seeing how so many elements of these people’s lives have been taken away, I became driven to give them a voice and to tell their narrative. It has become increasingly important to me that my work appeals to a wide audience to inform people on social issues that people are facing partly because of the pandemic, but mainly in day to day life.
Rae Tait is a portrait photographer from Surrey. She has a deep fascination for the obscure and people that gravitate towards the strange and unusual. Subcultures have always been something that has fascinated her and allowed her to feel comfortable and has involved this into her practice.