In her project “Talisman”, Kristina Knipe constructs identity through mythology in queer communities in New Orleans. This work examines the material and visual excess created from decadences, masquerades, and healing practice as it relates to the body. The artist’s photographs trace the life of objects, spaces and the body as they are transformed from elements and are being reused. For instance, we see objects disappear and resurface broken in other pictures, bodies change, time transforms people and plants die. In her practice, Kristina Knipe works in close collaboration with the sitters in order to make photographs that reflect individual stories of healing. She adorns them with shared materials to create a transformative experience of pleasure. This process is a queer ritual. “Talisman” works towards a merging and healing of nature, the man-made and the body in a flawed, but beautiful manifestation.

The project portrays people, whose reality consists of the burden of maintaining mental health without having healthcare, of being a person whose role is to make other’s spaces beautiful which by necessity means repurposing objects for their own, of having traumatic experiences with no recourse, cycles of depression in the service of the hospitality industry, expressing gender and sexuality despite judgement, and persisting in generative work through loss. The artist’s story is intertwined with those she photographs. They cohabit spaces and experiences within a community of artists, activists, and healers.