The Story

Kristina E. Knipe's Talisman offer details in excess--a rhinestone shimmering behind the wing of a dead cockroach, a cracked magnifying glass amplifies a passionflower, oxidation on a finger from a brass ring turns. Transgressing the historic photographic ordering of society, she embraces mess and its attendant spectacle. Queer ritual disrupts engrained hierarchies, rejecting outmoded classifications. In New Orleans the altars, masquerades, and decadences create a visual and material excess that heals as it depletes. She adorns her sitters in shared materials to create a transformative experience of pleasure.