Author | Winter Mendelson
Trans Avenue, a publication created by Ianna Book, features a series of photographic self-portraits taken in Montreal and New York from 2011 to 2013. Ianna reexamines her relationship with the environment as a means to explore how the body and the city often act as spaces of transformation and emancipation. Highlighting the way her non-standard identity disrupts “the order of things,” she explains that she is motivated by a need for personal assertion as she shapes her new identity.
Her book is a timeline of images that illustrate her physical transformation into womanhood. She comments, “My body is used as changing organic matter, like a clay sculpture being modelled.” Her interaction with her surroundings is playful and sensual, yet she often looks with confidence directly out at the viewer. Her willingness to bare her body out in the open is a way to free herself from the fear and lack of self-confidence related to her transition. The journey to find peace with public spaces has proven to be a therapeutic process.
Through this project Ianna seeks to promote cultural intermixing as well as offer an alternative to the stereotypical portrait and conventional urban landscape. Instead of a place to be feared, she turns the environment into a blank canvas that serves as an outlet for personal expression and growth.
For more information please visit www.iannabook.com
