Mariette Pathy Allen: Transcuba

Mariette Pathy Allen documents the transgender community of Cuba that is growing in visibility and acceptance. Under a slowly evolving model of communism, "the women in Transcuba] are engaged in quiet, banal moments, or else are looking resolutely at the viewer . . . demanding to be seen on their own terms and turf."--The Advocate

Mariette Pathy Allen has been photographing the transgender community for over 30 years. Through her artistic practice, she has been a pioneering force in gender consciousness, contributing to numerous cultural and academic publications about gender variance and lecturing throughout the globe. It won the 2004 Lambda Literary Award in the Transgender/Genderqueer category. Mariette's life's work is being archived by Duke University's Rare Book and Manuscripts Library, and the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's Studies. In addition to her work with gender, Mariette's background as a painter frequently leads her to photographic investigations of color, space, and cultural juxtapositions such as east/west, old/new, handmade/manufactured.

Mariela Castro Esp n (born July 27, 1962) is the director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education in Havana and an activist for LGBT rights in Cuba. She is the daughter of current Cuban president Ra l Castro and feminist and revolutionary Vilma Esp n as well as the niece of former president Fidel Castro. She has a brother, Alejandro Castro Esp n. Her group campaigns for effective AIDS prevention as well as recognition and acceptance of LGBT human rights. In 2005 she proposed a project to allow transgender people to receive sex reassignment surgery and change their legal gender. The measure became law in June 2008 which allows sex change surgery for Cubans without charge.

Allen Frame lives in New York where he teaches photography at the School of Visual Arts, Pratt Institute, and the International Center of Photography. He has also taught photography workshops in Mexico and Russia. His book Detour, a compilation of his photographs over a decade, was published by Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg in 2001. He is represented by Gitterman Gallery in New York where he had a solo show in 2005 and will have another one in Sept, 2009. Recently, his work has been included in exhibitions at the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Fotomuseum in Winterthur, Switzerland, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Mississippi, and as part of the 2009 Festival of Photography and Video in Korea. He has been the recipient of grants from the Penny McCall Foundation, the Peter Reed Foundation, Creative Time, Art Matters, CECArtslink and others. He co-founded the contemporary art center Delta Axis in Memphis in 1992 and has been a Contributing Editor of artwurl and BOMB. In 1990 he co-created Electric Blanket, an epic slide show about AIDS, which toured throughout the U.S. and to Norway, the U.K., Germany, Hungary, Japan, and in 2003, to Russia. He has been the curator of numerous exhibitions, including Darrel Ellis in 1996 and In This Place at Art in General in 2004. His short films have been screened at various international film festivals. He was born in Mississippi in 1951 and graduated from Harvard University in 1974.

Wendy Watriss is a photographer, curator, journalist, and writer. She is one of the founders of FotoFest, the internationally known photographic arts and education organization based in Houston, Texas. She has served as FotoFest's artistic director since 1991. Watriss began her professional career as a reporter and writer for national newspapers in the U.S. and later became a producer of news documentaries for national public television in New York. As curator and artistic director for FotoFest, Watriss has organized exhibits from Europe, Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the U.S.