After 10 years of transgender “hormone therapy” Lorenzo Triburgo ceased taking testosterone to explore their body as a site of literal and metaphorical gender abolition. Triburgo’s body and its metamorphoses became source material for Shimmer Shimmer, a series of figurative and still life photographs created in collaboration with partner and collaborator Sarah Van Dyck. The figurative images feature Triburgo’s glitter-adorned nude form in familiar art historical poses photographed on location at the historically gay section of the People’s Beach at Jacob Riis Park in Queens (Riis Beach), now a haven in the summer months for NYC queer communities. 

The shimmer of glitter on Triburgo’s figure is a camp expression of queer joy and resistance, but also suggests a celestial presence – a connection that is reiterated by the accompanying still lifes of glitter photographed as constellations. The “glitter constellations” are titled with astrological configurations such as Sextile and Conjunction (giving a nod to astrology, an important mode of connection for Triburgo and Van Dyck’s queer community) and signal to the viewer that titles of the figurative images such as Mars refer to the planet, not the (gendered) god. Glitter here is also a representation of change itself—ever-elusive, perceived differently according to light and subject position – a metaphor for trans*queer existence and perceptions thereof.