Queer Decadence and Decadent Ecologies in Laurence Philomène’s Photography

Oscar Wilde was a queer decadent. Romaine Brooks was a queer decadent. Montréal non-binary, trans photographer Laurence Philomène, I suggest in this essay, is a queer decadent. By “queer decadence,” I am referring to a deliberate femme queering of an aesthetics and a late nineteenth-century discourse that was primarily man-made and often misogynistic. Fin de siècle decadence encompassed sensuous pleasure in colour, textiles, and interior design, as well as an interest in non-normative lived experiences.Heidi Brevik-Zender, “Decadent Decors and Torturous Textiles: Fatal Fashions and Interior Design in Fin-de-Siècle Novels of Rachilde,” in Alla Myzelev and John Potvin, eds., Fashion, Interior Design and the Contours of Modern Identity (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), 105 — 23. According to professors Bridget Elliott and Jo-Ann Wallace, early twentieth-century queer female artists such as American painter Romaine Brooks (1874 — 1970) appropriated late nineteenth-century decadent aesthetics and fashion because it provided them with a visual, literary, and sartorial language with which to self-fashion as queer in both their work and their lives.Bridget Elliott and Jo-Ann Wallace, “Fleurs du Mal or Second-Hand Roses?: Natalie Barney, Romaine Brooks, and the ‘Originality of the Avant-Garde,’” in Women Artists and Writers: Modernist (Im)Positionings (New York and London: Routledge, 1994), 31 — 55. Philomène’s work is “queerly decadent” — not because they are explicitly referencing late nineteenth-century decadence, but because their work is self-reflexively transgressive, and it revels in tattooed skin, shiny surfaces, materiality, and visual pleasure. In their 2022 monograph Puberty,Laurence Philomène, Puberty (Atlanta: Yoffy Press, 2022). Philomène documents their life from winter 2019 until fall 2020, sharing experiences such as taking testosterone (Philomène took their first dose of testosterone on April 20, 2018), isolating during the pandemic, depression, and moving in with their partner, an artist named Nina. The book, which includes 188 photographs, is absolutely bursting with saturated colour. Lush oranges, ocean blues, forest greens, shimmering purples, and hot pinks are only some of the hues in a text that offers its readers a visually striking glimpse into the life of a trans, non-binary individual. The result is incredibly moving as well as joyful. Laurence PhilomèneMorning in bed with Nina, from the series Puberty, 2019-2021.Photo: courtesy of the artist The photographs provide visual evidence of a queer person who struggles and perseveres, and the images are filled with food, alcohol, drugs, decor, and textiles. Late nineteenth-century decadence became associated with drug consumption that was identified as excessive and deviant. In Puberty, Philomène rejects the stigmatization of drug use, stating that using marijuana “is a very grounding & healing practice for me.” The whole text is a compassionate, gorgeous, empathetic gift to Philomène themself, and by extension, any other human reading and looking. As the artist writes at the beginning of the book: “This story is my offering to you. I am so grateful for your love & energy while reading it. I hope it ignites a light of positivity in your heart. XO Larry.”Philomène, Puberty, n.p. Laurence PhilomènePastel testosterone, from the series Puberty, 2019-2021. Photo: courtesy of the artist Drawing on academic and poet Dennis Denisoff’s recent scholarship concerned with decadent ecology, I also want to propose that in the 2019 Huldufólk series by Philomène, they establish a decadent ecology that illuminates the ethical relationality amongst humans, the organic environment, and non-human animals. According to Denisoff, “A decadent ecology such as that envisioned by Swinburne differs in being characterized by disruption, defilement, and excess operating beyond human comprehension, modeling, or management. Such an open ecology is decadent not only in its historical and cultural references but also in its destabilizing forms.”Dennis Denisoff, Decadent Ecology in British Literature and Art, 1860 — 1910: Decay, Desire, and the Pagan Revival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 7. In early 2019, Philomène spent three weeks in Iceland, creating a series of self-portraits in which the artist posed nude in the rocky landscape. Philomène was in Iceland for an artist’s residency, and as preparation, they had researched the Icelandic myth of the Huldufólk (invisible or hidden people), who are sometimes also described as elves. As they write in Puberty, which includes several of the Huldufólk photographs, while taking the photographs, they “thought a lot about trans bodies in nature/as natural bodies.”Philomène, Puberty, n.p. For Philomène, the myth resonated with the marginalization of queer/trans/non-binary individuals who are at times perceived as either hyper-visible (read: threatening) or are actively attacked in the context of government policies ostensibly dedicated to the protection of basic human rights. Folklore revolving around the Huldufólk repeatedly alludes to sightings of these hidden people throughout the area, and these glimpses are usually marked by some anomaly in the landscape, such as a strange rocky formation or an unexpected explosion of colourful flowers. The survival and resilience of the Huldufólk in the extremes of Iceland’s weather system is also central to the folklore, and this too resonated for Philomène, who was thinking about the survival and resilience of the 2SLGBTQ+ communities around the globe who face varying degrees of stigmatization, oppression, and physical violence. Laurence PhilomèneMossy Hills, from the seriesHuldufólk, 2019. Photo: courtesy of the artist Laurence PhilomèneLava Field, from the seriesHuldufólk, 2019. Photo: courtesy of the artist As Métis scholar of Indigenous studies Zoe Todd has proposed in an essay titled “Indigenizing the Anthropocene”: “An effective art of the Anthropocene is one that directly engages with the structural violences of heteropatriarchy and white supremacy as they shape discourse and praxis.”Zoe Todd, “Indigenizing the Anthropocene,” in Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin, eds., Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies (London: Open Humanities Press, 2015), 248 — 49. Emphasis in original. The survival not only of Iceland’s “invisible people” but also the survival of flora and fauna in the country’s landscape functions as a powerful metaphor for the survivance of queer, trans, and non-binary individuals in the twenty-first century in a range of global contexts. Philomène is also cognizant of the distinct violences that Indigenous Peoples have experienced due to colonialism in Canada, and they take an intersectional approach to thinking about post-COVID life. They write: “I don’t miss the old world before the pandemic. I am dreading going back to ‘normal’/hope we never do. Thinking about the trauma of settler colonialism & late-stage capitalism. I think there are lies we’ve been told to accept as truths that are quickly disintegrating right now — I don’t think people will stand for it much longer.”Philomène, Puberty, n.p. This passage strikes me as an important part of a dialogue that Todd is undertaking in her own text. The artist experienced a broad range of different bodily sensations posing in the Icelandic landscape. The moss depicted in some of the photographs is hundreds of years old and is extremely soft and cushy — Philomène describes it as “nature’s mattress” — but it covers volcanic rock, so lying on this particular kind of natural surface created difficulties in terms of bodily discomfort. In the photographs, Philomène’s body is shot from a long distance, so they are dwarfed by the landscape. Yet they are still visible, one part of a greater whole. Philomène set out to mould themselves to each specific location; the artist wanted to “connect” with the land.Laurence Philomène, personal interview, August 31, 2019. But posing for the self-portraits was extremely demanding physically, not least because they were vulnerable to the elements and unpredictable changes in the weather. Their solution to the physical discomfort was to be in their body as much as possible, entering what they describe as a “trance,” or a meditative state. They were highly aware of their body and how it felt against the ground. It was an exercise in holistic living: weaving together the physical, mental, and emotional. With these photographs, Philomène continues to challenge viewers to think about bodies — their own and the bodies of others — with gentleness and compassion, considering the ways that our identities are crafted out of embodied, affective, and relational experiences. For Philomène, Iceland’s natural environment functions as a living metaphor for their understanding of trans/queer/non-binary lived experience. The interweaving of their body and the Icelandic landscape, both hard and soft, illustrates this fluid and inter-relational understanding of humans and non-human agents. Laurence PhilomèneOrange Lichen, from the seriesHuldufólk, 2019. Photo: courtesy of the artist Zoe Todd proposes turning “towards praxis that acknowledges the central importance of land, bodies, movement, race, colonialism, and sexuality.”Todd, “Indigenizing the Anthropocene,” 245. In their Huldufólk photographs, as well as in their stunning book Puberty, Philomène’s vibrant, luscious, politically-grounded, and queerly decadent ecology demands that we meditate upon our own ways of being in the world and our ethical responsibilities to the land, human animals, and non-human animals alike. Philomène’s work illuminates this kind of embodied, affective relationship with the natural world. As they state in the latter half of Puberty: “My favorite willow tree always calms me down. She sways in the wind so beautifully.”Philomène, Puberty, n.p. Julia Skelly, Laurence Philomène

Queer Decadence and Decadent Ecologies in Laurence Philomène’s Photography

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