Ryan Danny Owen

MIRRORS & WINDOWS

Mirrors & Windows, is an online queer archival project that showcases a collection of found photographs. These photographs explore intergenerational queer identity, loss, kinship, and familiarity. The project was initiated in 2017 and includes over 100 found queer photographs that date from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. The photographs have been collected from auctions, donations, antique markets, and thrift stores. They come in various formats, such as 35mm slides, polaroids, photo booth pictures, and boxes of lost snapshots.

The project aims to document a history of queerness that has the potential to be lost to time. It was originally developed as a response to the loss of information that occurred during the AIDS crisis. However, it has since become an exploration of queer kinship and familiarity.

The found photographs reflect the harsh reality of queer spirits caught between life and death, potentially lost to the AIDS crisis. The spaces they occupy reflect a queer time of somewhere and yet nowhere. The project is entirely self-funded and was created as a way to reflect on identity and the history of loss that is inherited as a queer person.

The photographs in this project document an experience that is both far and familiar. They remind us that the past is not just a window to look through, but a mirror that reflects back at us.