Acknowledgments

My co-conspirators:

To my Bub, Blue, the Statler to my Waldorf: thank you for your faith in this project, and for your faith in me. Thank you for befriending my weird, cagey, stubborn, steamroller heart. I would be lost without you. And thank you for making this beautiful space, this WONDERFUL studio, twice.

To my One, mi amorcito, my Icky: thank you for encouraging me to pursue this idea and create this project. Thank you for not letting me give up on it. Thank you for holding me in June when I realized I wouldn’t be able to finish it at the height of my hand injuries. Thank you for lovingly holding me at my limits. Thank you for cutting out every single photo in the installation (some of them more than once due to printer malfunctions). Thank you for sneakily cleaning my house and batch-cooking food for us. Thank you for all of the layers and levels of your love. Thank you for bringing your own vision and sharing your magic at this event. We can do anything. I love you 🌊🌙 

To my Husbear, JR: thank you for literally being my hands for the last several months. Thank you for refilling my water bottle 86 times a day, preparing food, opening doors and jars and doing all the dishes all of the time. Thank you for driving me to a laundry list of doctors and specialists day after day, week after week for the last several months. Thank you for stepping in to edit the home movies for “What We Leave Behind” when I knew it would be too much for me to do during my very slow-going recovery. I love you 🦊🩶🐻 

To Mari: thank you for igniting this spark many months ago. This all came from a conversation about photo books. Hate to break it to you but you’re kind of my muse for this so.. surprise! 

To Voxbody: thank you for being the home for all these misfit toys and so many delicious slices of life. Thank you for holding “What We Leave Behind” with love and care.

To my love, Zephir: watching the eclipse with you brought so much into focus, including the vision for this event. Thank you for your love, sweetness, and support.

Ambient performers:

To my beloved Icky and dearest Lief Bound, thank you for sharing your magic with us tonight.

To my brother Darius, thank you for being my family and for your trust in me (today and with my other shenanigans).

And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone who sent in submissions (+ some names of the beautiful faces on display tonight):

AfroDisiac

Ali

Anais

Ann

Apollo

Beau Donovan

Becca

Billy

Bliss

Blue

Calba

Carter Spear

Cedar

Charlee Chaste

Diana

Dragon King

Flower

Frank

Icky

Inky

Isabel

Ivy

Jaxx

Jessie

Juliette

Kink.them

Kit

Lee S.

Lief Bound

Lolo

Lucid

Mag

Mari

Mason Rose

Mayhem

Miss Lee

Molly

Moooo

Pup Hailey

Pup Dani

Rona

Rhiannon

Sae

Sincognitoy

Snailtrail.rope

Stephanie

Sylky

Videl Wright

Wondra

Artist’s statement:

In my youth, the portrayal of a “mid-life crisis” was grossly misrepresented: showreels of men buying red Corvettes and women having affairs with their pool boys didn’t deliver the message. Here, in my late 30s, the reality of it is sinking in: it’s not about chasing youth, it’s the weight of understanding that you are halfway (if you’re lucky) to dying. 

I’ve always been a little obsessed and preoccupied with death and mortality. Once I understood its finality, as a child, it felt like a threat. As I grew older, sometimes it felt more like a warm invitation. 

To be queer, trans, and disabled is to reckon with growing older after spending the first 29 years of your life being convinced you wouldn’t see 30.

Early this year during a jam at Voxbody, I flipped through a photo book from the Quiet Corner library while chatting with Mari. Mari talked about the author of the photo book, a kinkster in Japan. Mari mentioned that making photo books of all kinds (not just kinky ones) was much more common in that particular subculture, and that inspired them to make some, too. They said something along the lines of the creation of photobooks as a means to document their experiences, their friends, and their time together. 

For many humans, raising children allows parents, guardians, and ancestors to live on once they’ve left this plane of existence. My spouse and I are not raising kids, most of my peers aren’t either.

Which made me wonder: what will we leave behind?

Queer and trans history remain in the crosshairs of the state, defiled by agendas and censorship. Our histories are not only repressed, they are actively destroyed. Carving out time and space to witness ourselves and our love while we’re still alive to see it makes my heart race to the point of bursting, and I needed to do something just for Us.

This is a love letter to our descendants.

Let them see how we thrived in a world that told us we had no right to exist, let alone be happy. 

-Grey