Artist: Omari Simmons
Photographer: MCP Photo | McKenna C Poe
Makeup: Adrienne Gagnier
Models: Omari Simmons and Ian Dominguez Ball
BTS Photography & Assistant: Perla Martinez
Location: Between Space Studio
NITROGEN: a colorless, odorless gas making up 78% of Earth's atmosphere, essential for life as a component of amino acids, proteins, and DNA.
Artist’s Statement: Liquid nitrogen becomes the weather of this world: cold, blinding, and persistent, obscuring what is closest and most desired. The landscape is emotional as much as physical, shaped by tension, rawness and love forced to exist in half-light. The fog represents the forces that have consumed all forms of intimacy. Yet authenticity persists. Breath cuts through the mist. Touch creates warmth where none should exist. This work honors queer devotion as wild, aching, and unsanctioned; a love, bond and openness that does not need clarity to be real, diverse and the only courage to keep pushing through the fog.
Proceeds of the prints from this collection are split equally between the photographer, the leading artist, and the organization or crowd-funding effort of that artist’s choice. Omari has selected The National Black Transgender Advocacy Coalition, the only social justice organization led by black trans people to collectively address the inequities faced in the black transgender human experience by overcoming violence and injustice in the world through the power, value and love of all people. Find out more at blacktrans.org
audio recommendation: “Hammer” By Lorde
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Photographer: MCP Photo
Model: McKenna C Poe
Location: Between Space Studio
CAESIUM - a soft, silvery-golden alkali metal and one of only five elemental metals that are liquid at room temperature. The International System of Units uses a specific hyperfine neutral caesium to define the basic unit of time, the second.
Artist’s Statement: What defines a second? How much can happen within one? If we’re lucky, we get to experience so many in our lifetimes, and with the pace of our current world, it can be hard to appreciate and savor the little moments, the seconds of time, that we get to experience. In my artistic lifetime, I’ve defined myself as so many things: a ballerina, an actor, a student, a business owner, a photographer, a designer - the list goes on. We seek to define our personhood and our seconds in order to validate progress in our society that doesn’t reward rest. Through this project, I wanted to visualise a second of unrest, a second of joy, a second of just being. By opening the camera shutter for exactly a second, measured by the combustion rate of Caesium, I aim to capture just that: being.
Proceeds of the prints from this collection are split equally between the photographer and the organization or crowd-funding effort of the photographer’s choice. McKenna has selected Bushwick Ayuda Mutua, a network of neighbors supporting neighbors in Bushwick. Find out more at BushwickAyudaMutua.com
See more @mcpphoto.png on Instagram or at MCPPHOTO.com
Audio Recommendation: “Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)” covered by Sammy Rae and The Friends
Artist: Angus Beef
Photographer: MCP Photo | McKenna C Poe
Assistant & Video: Omari Simmons
Location: Between Space Studio
IRON - the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. In the modern world, iron alloys, such as steel or cast iron, are by far the most common industrial metals, due to their mechanical properties and low cost.
Artist’s Statement: As the socialite-cannibal Dr. Hannibal Lecter once said, “We live in a primitive time… neither savage nor wise.” Scientific and technological research are advancing at an ever-accelerating rate; at the same time, it can feel like society is slipping backward into outdated ways of thinking and behaving. Perhaps nothing is more representative of this schism for me than the manosphere’s obsession with eating raw meat to regain a mythical “ancestral masculinity.” As a drag king named after meat, I wanted to capture this strange performance of masculinity that straddles modern pseudoscientist and primal instinct; the projection of strength and the concealment of fragility. Iron is a contradiction. It is a soft and malleable metal that we use as shorthand for strength and fortitude. It is essential in our blood, and it can poison us. Here, it is a fruitful creative collaboration between two artists—and it is a metallic tang hanging in the air and lingering in the nose as blood-stained teeth tear into once-living flesh.
Proceeds of the prints from this collection are split equally between the photographer, the artist, and the organization or crowd-funding effort of the artist’s choice. Angus has selected The Okra Project, a mutual aid collective focused on supporting Black Trans people and alleviating barriers the community faces. Find out more at theokraproject.com
audio recommendation: custom audio by Angus Beef
See more @mcpphoto.png on Instagram or at MCPPHOTO.com
Artist: Koko Momo
Photographer: MCP Photo | McKenna C Poe
Location: Between Space Studio
Helium, a magical element, the second lightest, lifts us up in celebratory balloons and when you suck it down to impersonate a cartoon it makes us laugh. Mix it up with some hydrogen and it’s what stars are made of, just like the artist of this month’s collab.
Artist’s Statement: Conceptualizing this dress as my “Outrageous Gown” for the National Comedy Queen Pageant was no joke (pun intended). For this category, I wanted to make something larger than life that I'd still be able to fit in my suitcase from Brooklyn to Florida. So inflatable was the answer! Koko Momo is a very playful and joyous human clown so wearing a bouncy castle just felt completely right. The construction of this gown was a challenge and I couldn’t have done it without the collaboration of an incredible costume designer, Pierretta Viktori , who made a freaking dress out of bouncy house materials! This gown was a group project; my family came in to rhinestone it all, Chevy Lace, an incredible drag king, helped with the structure logistics, and my partner made sure I could get in and out of it in the only space where the dress could fit inflated in our apartment…the kitchen. For me, drag is an expression of things that bring me the most joy and laughter, so the outpouring of people who connect with this dress has been a delight to witness. We all just want to be silly lil guys but we're told we have to grow up and be fancy adults…which is so not true. Do the things that bring you joy; I dare you to look at the world through the lens of your inner child.
Proceeds of the prints from this collection are split equally between the photographer, the artist, and the organization or crowd-funding effort of the artist’s choice. Koko Momo has selected The Immigration Coalition, an immigration advocacy group highlighting and sending funds directly to folks in need. Find out more @immigrationcoalition
audio recommendation: “Jump” by Van Halen
