Chameleon is a photo essay about visibility and stands as a conversation between masculinities and spaces. Looking beyond heteronormative confines the still frames evoke the love, fear, joy and safe environments of people that exist outside these constructs that can be suffocating. A narrative both personal and collective, a statement, an escape through beauty; Ugo Woatzi creates his photographs through evocations of his own experiences and people from his community. “As a kid growing up in a very patriarchal and traditional environment in the countryside of France I had to follow certain codes and rules in order to become ‘a man'”.
An interest that sticks to the bond between space, body and gender he is equally engaged in celebrating as well as questioning the diversity of masculinities. Working metaphorically, he stages his work and plays with light, shape, colour and shadow. “Some photographs are performative while others are fragments of [the] people’s lives who surround me.”
Chameleon becomes a metaphor of the small little lizard that occupies space but simultaneously hides in plain sight. This camouflage ability is for Ugo an expression of what he seeks to open up dialogue about-those of us who live but hide in plain sight and do not fit the conventional moulds constructed by heteronormativity. “With this body of work, I want to encourage queer people to show themselves and share their story through photography.”
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