Cris Gomez's Polaroids: Being Queer & The Fear of Losing Everything

Cris Gomez’s Polaroids: Being Queer & The Fear of Losing Everything by Vicente CayuelaMay 7, 2024

©Cris Gómez, Eric, 2018

This week on Lenscratch we present an eclectic survey of photo-based artists exploring issues of Queer identity and representation. These exceptional artists expand our appreciation for diverse photographic techniques, directing our attention to critical issues of bodily autonomy, reclamation, and belonging.

Photographers documenting queer life play a pivotal role in preserving a communal memory that would likely go unpreserved without their efforts. In Being Queer & The Fear of Losing Everything, Cris Gómez Nilo‘s voice emerges as that of a queer documentarian with similar preoccupations of other social Chilean photographers like Paz Errázuriz, situating him among a prominent line of cultural workers who have preserved dissident narratives and bodies from hetero-normative oblivion. Today, the focus is on the artist’s personal archive of Polaroids. The photographs offer an intimate glimpse into the life of the artist and his social circle, encompassing a rich array of portraits of other queer individuals, artists and performers in the Chilean scene.

©Cris Gómez, Yo, 2023

Bio

Cris Gómez Nilo, born in 1988, San Antonio, Chile. Self-taught queer photographer specializing in analog photography. Luis Poirot, Fernanda Larraín, and Susana Adriasola have been his mentors in photography. He has participated in collective exhibitions in 2014 and 2015, showcased at “Juventud Providencia,” and in 2022 at “Funámbulos, putting oneself in their shoes: Body, photography, and masculinities” at the Institut Français. In 2018, he was part of the Valparaíso International Photography Festival (FIFV). His work has been published in photography magazines such as LTRGO (2022) and Reset (2023). In 2024, he was part of the Excéntrico Fest with his short film “Fallen Hood.” Currently, he is working on photographic projects focused on intimacy, affective and political aspects, with an emphasis on memory and new media.

Follow Cris on Instagram: @criss__gomez

Being queer and the fear of losing everything

Like many others, I live with the constant fear of losing everything. Discrimination, rejection, violence… they are ghosts that haunt.
Photography has become a refuge. An instrument to capture the fleeting beauty of life, intimate moments with my loves, friends, and admired artists. A way to ensure that those memories do not fade into oblivion. But the fear persists. Fear of losing the photos, of the film not developing, of the negatives getting lost. A fear rooted in trauma, internalized homophobia, in the feeling of not being deserving of love or success. Despite the fear, I continue and constantly struggle with queer fear. I share my work, connect with other queer people, and build a community. Photography becomes an act of resistance, a tool to challenge invisibility and build an alternative narrative. — Cris Gómez

Ser cuir y el miedo de perderlo todo

Como muchos otros, vivo con el miedo constante de perderlo todo. La discriminación, el rechazo, la violencia… son fantasmas que acechan. La fotografía se ha convertido en un refugio. Un instrumento para capturar la belleza fugaz de la vida cola, momentos íntimos con mis amores, amiges y artistas que admiro. Una forma de asegurarse de que esos recuerdos no se desvanezcan en el olvido. Pero el miedo persiste. Miedo a perder las fotos, a que el rollo no se revele, a que los negativos se extravíen. Un miedo que hunde sus raíces en el trauma, en la homofobia internalizada, en la sensación de no ser merecedor de amor o éxito. A pesar del miedo, una continuo y lucha constantemente con el miedo marica. Comparto mi trabajo, conecto con otras personas colas y construyo una comunidad. La fotografía se convierte en un acto de resistencia, una herramienta para desafiar la invisibilización y construir una narrativa alternativa. — Cris Gómez