Imprint of Shame
- Title
- Imprint of Shame See all items with this value
- I am a lesbian woman from the southern United States. See all items with this value
- Description
- Yes See all items with this value
-
At 24 years old I came out as a lesbian. In every coming out story I had seen, I believed you came out once and - if you were lucky - were instantly relieved. “The last thing I expected after coming out… was feeling sad. Vulnerable? Yes. Liberated? Absolutely. But the grief snuck up on me.”
I created “Imprint of Shame” not to emphasize the correlation between coming out with trauma, but rather to open a conversation about shame in the queer identity. I use “phototherapy” by acting out my personal history as a means to understand and release these traumas. See all items with this value - In this image a woman character deals with the weight of her queer shame through escapism. The artist, Maggie McLemore, uses self portraiture and the idea of "phototherapy" - acting out and photographing personal histories to work through traumas - to open a conversation about queer shame. Why does it exist? In what forms? How do we work through it? Etc. See all items with this value
- Yes See all items with this value
- Creator
- Maggie McLemore
- gender
- She/Her
- handle
- @magsterss
- Date
- 2025
- Access Rights
- Yes
- Medium
- I understand
Site pages
This item was submitted on February 4, 2026 by [anonymous user] using the form “Curve Photo Contest 2026 Submission Form” on the site “Curve Archive”: https://curvemag.omeka.net/s/curve-archive
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