She / Her / Hers / Herself is the culmination of a five-year collaboration between myself and Sarah Wilson, which explores one individual’s experience as they navigate their transgender identity. The work charts wide-ranging changes in Sarah’s life, as she establishes a career as a beautician, passes a series of personal milestones, and lives day-to- day while learning to express her true self. She / Her / Hers / Herself is a portrait not only of Sarah’s experience of gender transition, the work also represents the evolving expression of Sarah’s femininity set against the social construction of what it is to be female in the contemporary world.
Sarah and I first met through the making of Let Us Eat Cake – a collaborative body of work created with a group of LGBTQ+ people from across Northern Ireland – exhibited at Belfast Exposed in 2017. During this time, Sarah first began to accept her own trans identity and once Let Us Eat Cake was completed, we continued to work together to document her experience of transition. This collaboration evolved to form the basis of She / Her / Hers / Herself.