Seattle artist Jono Vaughan stitches memorial dresses to call attention to trans murders.
[Crosscut] Brangien Davis on visual artist Jono Vaughan & dancer/choreographer Randy Ford, honoring the lives of trans women in an exhibit and performances at SAM (thru 8/5).
In donning the vibrant and swirling purple, orange and yellow dress dedicated to Deja Jones, Ford committed several social transgressions at once: Walking through a SAM gallery in her undergarments, taking a piece of art off the wall, slipping it over her head and dancing down the hall to Mary J. Blige’s “No More Drama.” Not to mention the essential transgression of being trans, of not fitting into society’s tidy gender boxes.
“I wanted to give Deja the proper memorial she should’ve been given … versus just being forgotten about,” Ford says. At the beginning of the dance, she delicately pointed to four spots on her torso, representing the gunshots, and flinched as each finger landed. “I started there because we have to face the facts,” she says.