Jesse Ryan Crosby

My personal project, and forthcoming self-published photographic book, “Unlocking Hope,” has been made over the course of ten years, and to this day, it stands as one of the most intimate confessionals I’ve ever produced. It is an on-going self-documentarian style of photographic work, complimented with excerpts of my spoken word poetry, and deep-seated writings, interwoven with selected self-portraiture. Throughout this project, I am also working with, and pairing imagery together as both diptychs and triptychs, both thematically and contextually. I am intrigued by how these working methods, both photographically and linguistically, allow for an alternative dialogue to unfold; one that differs from that of what the singular image can bring forth. 
I have used photographic media to explore my relationship to my corporeal, my emotionality, and my innate sense of self, in coming to understand myself as a non-binary individual throughout my coming of age. My work invites the viewer toward a deep disclosure of emotional transparency, and a breadth of perseverance, through documentation of my lived experience. Turning the lens inward, I am able to hold space for myself; conveying my story of becoming, and the willingness to see, and accept myself, as I am. This work is titled “Unlocking Hope,” for a reason, and that’s simply because, hope whispers, “You are a light in a dark room.” www.jesseryancrosbyphotography.com