Cameron Day O’Connell

Cameron Day O’Connell is a trans photographer and multimedia artist residing on unceded Duwamish land. They grew up predominantly in the Pacific Northwest, which is evident in their depth of relationship with social and natural ecosystems in Seattle. They have a background in healthcare and reproductive justice as a birth and full-spectrum doula, which informs their work documenting the state of intimacy in the queer community amidst a pandemic, global climate change, and rising transphobia.

In 2015, Cameron O’Connell received a BA in Psychology and Visual Art from Hampshire College. They were a curatorial intern with Bridge Productions in 2018 and curated the multimedia Blue Lady series, in Northampton, Massachusetts. O’Connell organized with Lions Main Art Collective 2016-2019 and was a member of the board of directors and an organizer at The Vera Project 2009-2013. Cameron Day O’Connell’s personal and curatorial work has been shown at Gallery 4Culture, Minimart City Park, SLIP Gallery, Fishbowl Gallery, The Factory, Bridge Productions, Columbia Tower, Fort Worden, Party Hat Gallery, and Summer at SAM.

In the lineage of many queer photographers before me, I document my surrounding world to run as far away, and as far into grief as possible. Being queer means being intimate with death—the death of self, the constant rising from some sort of ash or mud or ground as a truer self. As some of us sculpt ourselves into wholeness, we part ways with past selves. It also means we could be taken by death at any second. I obsessively document us, chosen family, lovers, two-night stands, knowing that we may not be here in these bodies in the next moment. The same is true for the environment around me. Who knows what will go extinct next, what will grow from this dead tree or feed on that dead bird to become more alive. I am acquainted with death and therefore deeply enamored with each moment of this miraculous queer life.

Website / https://camerondayoconnell.com