Transformation Journey
A visual diary by Mikaela Lungulov-Klotz on her twin’s path coming out as a trans man.
Courtesy of the artist.
Wandering around the infinite world of digital magazines some months ago, I stopped for a minute at an image that promptly caught my eye. It was a portrait of a couple, sitting on a bench inside a room with white walls. One of them was looking straight to the camera while the other was staring back at him. I had no more details on the picture, but the looks of them were so strong, that you could tell right away there was a powerful story behind. This is how I got to know Mikaela’s Lungulov-Klotz work.
Mikaela and her twin Vuk grew up in Chile, Serbia and The United States. Through photography, Mikaela documents different precious and intimate moments of her life. Vuk’s transition coming out as a trans man is one of them.
For this issue I talked to the twins about “^”, the photographic series where Mikaela portrayed Vuk’s beautiful transformation that took place in Brooklyn, and through which she explores the meaning of trust, intimacy, respect and beauty. The name “^” alludes to those people that we call “home” and invites the viewer to explore trans and non binary people’s stories.
Georgina: How did your interest in photography start?
Mikaela: Both of my parents are visual artists, my mom is a painter and my dad is a filmmaker. Growing up when we would spend time with our dad I remember he would point out small details about situations that were interesting, weird, or kind off-kilter. Every day I feel like we would end up with a collection of funny little details that “would be really good in a movie”. Our parents separated super early on in our life, and because of that, we grew up in between different countries. The time we spent with our dad was limited and therefore very precious to him. He constantly carried some sort of camera with him, and normalized the notion of our life being documented. We have so many camcorder videos of our time with him, everything turned into a movie. We went to Boston once to renew our passports and there is an entire “documentary” about it. I think spending time with him really taught me to keep my eyes open. I also was extremely quiet as a child and teenager, I kind of cultivated a preference for concise-ness with words during interactions, and really preferred to not speak at all. Silence throughout my developmental years gave a lot of space and time to devote to looking, using my eyes to gather non verbal information about situations. Photography to me is about looking closely and paying attention, taking mental notes in regards to details or qualities that are significant, and sharpening your reflexes in order to capture them, sometimes in real time, and other times after the fact. Growing up bilingual I think also has a place in my atune-ness to using images. The silent teenager in me would be, and is, so relieved that I can point to an image I made in order to describe or explain my feelings and thoughts. Photos to me are like essays that live in between languages, and I am delighted to not have to choose between Spanish or English when I’m making pictures.
Courtesy of the artist.
G: What dialogues do you like to create between your work and the viewer?
M: Growing up I was extremely guarded, kind of detached, and withholding. My overall memory of being a kid and teenager feels like I was floating and everything and everyone was muffled. I was depressed and self destructing, I could not understand how to live. I developed a really severe eating disorder when I was around twelve and I was not able to even begin to overcome it until I was twenty one. I kind of just only began to understand how to become a real person during my twenties. Something clicked, and I figured out that the way to crack life was to give myself to it. To try really hard to become a real boy, like Pinocchio. In order to become a real boy I needed to get to know myself, to get to know others, to let others get to know me… to let myself get attached and be intimate with people. I’m really interested in intimacy, how beautiful and rewarding it is, and how disgusting it can feel at times. I would like for the person viewing my photographs to feel like they’ve stepped into a precious and private moment. I think the difficult and uncomfortable part about intimacy is how honest you have to be, how unflattering it feels to be looked at closely, how humiliating it can feel to need anything from anyone. I want viewers to engage with the honesty put forward through the photographs so as to have dialogues that stem from a mutual decision to listen and to try to understand. In regards to the photos I’ve taken of my brother, it’s not only him who may be uncomfortable, it’s also me, and the viewer. When Vuk first came out I needed a lot from him and I really admire the poise and openness with which he became in front of everyone. These photos visually capture the rupturing of imaginary definitions in regards to the notion of identity as being static and predetermined. I’d like for viewers to view these as a tangible retort to boundaries that do not actually exist, and therefore do not need to be upheld. It’s also really important to me that people trust and listen to trans and non binary people, these pictures are an invitation to take Vuk’s hand and trust him all the way through.
G: “^” is the name of the photo series in which you documented the transition of your twin brother coming out as a trans man. Can you explain the meaning of the title?
M: This little symbol comes from a tattoo I gave my brother on one of his fingers. We are first generation Americans, my mother is Chilean and my father is Serbian, our lives have been punctuated by constant movement and change. We moved in between continents, always switching countries, schools, friends, cities, houses, languages and families. Every time we spent time with our dad it would be in a different town and a different house, basement or attic. We’ve always been each others only constant. At the time that Vuk came out we were both living in New York, far away from any of our family aside from each other. It felt similar to boarding an international flight as unaccompanied minors and switching languages mid flight to adjust to the language we had to speak with our father or mother upon landing. I always feel like I am far away, I used to get really scared I would never be able to feel grounded, throughout my early adulthood Vuk was incredibly nurturing and when he started transitioning I wanted to make sure I tried my best to provide that for him as well. In the midst of what at the time felt like a really immense change I think I was trying to build something that could contain it all. In retrospect, piecing it together as a narrative feels like a self inflicted maternal act towards my brother and I. Vuk talks about the tattoo on his finger and refers to himself as a snail, carrying his home with him wherever he goes. This photo series to me is exactly that. The little triangle is the roof of a little house, una “casita”. Vuk is my little casita.
Courtesy of the artist.
G: How was the idea of documenting this process born?
M: When Vuk came out and began transitioning I really was having difficulty thinking about anything else. It felt as though something very precious was coming to the surface. There was a lot to learn and unless I made a conscious effort to pay close attention this shimmer would evaporate. I wanted to make sure that I was fully present during this time. It almost feels like cheating, but through taking pictures I felt like I could slow this whirlwind down a little bit, take a closer look at it, and process it. I really wanted to be able to provide a safe place for Vuk, and taking pictures was my version of that, these pictures live on as a shared place between him and I.
G: Having a twin means a lot more than sharing identical DNA and many people describe it as a unique, strong and inexplicable bond. Did you ever feel that Vuk’s process was a transition for you as well?
M: Something that I worried a lot about was our family's reaction. I was very scared that our family would not embrace him, I was terrified that I would no longer be able to function as a twin in that regard, that I would have to come back home without being able to share Vuk with them. I think in a sort of selfish way highly involving myself in Vuk’s transition was my way of maintaining our twinship. We had up until then, always been twin sisters, and I did worry about what would happen to that. Which in retrospect seems silly, Vuk becoming more himself would never mean he would abandon me. If anything I think he set a really good example that also allowed me to become more myself. I also think Vuk coming out sort of scrunched up the timeline for everyone, especially our dad. I spent a lot of time on the phone, processing Vuk’s transition with him, arguing about the way he was responding. He flew from Belgrade to New York during Thanksgiving, a holiday that doesn’t
hold much meaning for any of us, specifically to see us because of Vuk having come out. This was an incredibly tense weekend that involved a lot of explaining, crying and yelling. This was the first time he had seen either of us since Vuk came out and started hormone therapy. Vuk's voice was different, the way he moved was different, his body and face had changed. I observed as my father came to terms with what all of this meant, I watched him struggle as he was forced to re-imagine his role, he was having to let go of any sort of authority he thought he possessed, as well as a narrative he assumed his and our lives would follow.
G: How did this event inspire your work? Do you think there is a turning point between your photographs before and after Vuk’s transition?
M: I think shooting pictures of Vuk made it really obvious that what I want to do as I continue to make things is intertwine my life and my art practice as much as possible. I want my life to guide my work and my work to guide my life. Photography and filmmaking both allow for you to choose what your life will be made up of for the next period of time, and I really like to take advantage of that. The project I worked on after focusing on this series has to do with caves, so for a long time now my life has been consumed by traveling and visiting different caves across the United States with my friend and collaborator Haley Dahl. This cave project has also taught us a lot emotionally, and I think that is kind of a perfect combination.
Courtesy of the artist.
G: You grew up in between three countries whose cultural backgrounds are completely different from each other. In your opinion, how different would it have been the transition (and with it, the result of the photo series “^”) if it had occurred in Chile or Serbia?
Vuk: All three countries are extremely different. I can’t even begin to imagine what coming out and transitioning would have been like in Serbia. I remember being 17 and wanting to go to the Serbian pride march, but my father forbade me. He told me that last year a gay man had had his skull crushed at the march. As for Chile, I’m certain that the transition process would have been much longer and slower. The laws surrounding trans people are very behind. It wasn’t until 2018 that transgender people were recognized as citizens in Chile. It would’ve been much more of an uphill battle. Not only within the socio-political aspect, but also medically speaking. Gender affirming hormone therapy and surgery wasn’t even a topic for trans masculine people over there five years ago. Through “patient consent,” I was able to ask for hormone therapy and use my mandatory college insurance to help pay for my top surgery. It would have taken years to get the money together in Chile, and I would’ve probably ended up getting surgery outside of the country. Here in NYC, family was just me and Mika. Home was small, and she allowed me to run for my dreams. A lot of my coming out process was over the phone, it was only to her who I had to respond to in person and she took care of me. I can’t imagine how transitioning in front of all my family would have been. Maybe too painful? Much more confused for sure. Though the USA is incredibly flawed and corrupt, it’s individualistic nature allows for people to claim identities in a very specific way. I grew up watching transgender men transition on YouTube while I was going through puberty in Chile. So, in a way, transitioning was part of my fantasies of leaving Chile. I didn’t want to leave Chile, but I knew that my dreams had to sprout somewhere else in order for me to come back whole one day.
Mika: Strictly speaking as a photographer, I'm extremely curious as to what it would have looked like had this taken place in Chile or Serbia, I had never really thought about it before to be honest. But it’s hard for me to answer in regards to the transitions process and I feel like that should be answered by Vuk more so than me. I feel like it just would've been less of an option like Vuk is saying. In a lot of ways we both decided to live out our young adulthood in the states because of the possibilities that it allowed. A lot of the pictures are of Vuk and I carving out a home for ourselves in this country. The Loft, the picture of Vuk and I right after his top surgery while we lived in our friend Jane’s attic, etc. I think had this taken place in Chile it might have had a lot more to do with our mother and grandmother, how the previous generations informed our present, and what this shift meant for their past, as well as for our shared future.
G: There is a photo of you both sitting on a bench that I found particularly strong and beautiful. Is there a special story behind it?
M: While shooting a lot of these pictures I travelled back and forth from Brooklyn, where I lived, to White Plains, where Vuk was going to college. I accompanied Vuk to doctors appointments, support group meetings and anything and everything that might've been directly or indirectly related to his becoming and our understanding of it. Vuk showed me where the trans support group meetings took place and he talked to me about the special people he met through them. The year Vuk came out was the year I learned about Trans remembrance day. This day memorializes those who have been murdered as a result of transphobia. We spent trans remembrance day together at an event that was hosted through Vuk’s support group at a community center in White Plains, NY called The Loft. That evening I met Vuk’s new friends from the support group, and the names of trans people who we’ve lost because of transphobic violence were read out loud in the part of The Loft that is a chapel.
Courtesy of the artist.
G: In an interview with Velvet Eyes two years ago, you mentioned that you want your future work to be “a balance of serenity and discomfort”. Can we appreciate this concept in your current photographs?
M: I don’t think that the newer pictures of Vuk necessarily have that, since they are markedly more airy and light than the older work. But I am currently working on a project with my dear friend and collaborator Alanna Murray, we’re writing a script and I believe that what we are working on will have some of that. This script focuses on the sorrows of heartache and the misguided responses to it. I want it to be really lush and beautiful visually, but also sort of repulsive in regards to its content.
G: In your opinion, what role does photography and arts play in terms of gender identities and the LGBTQ+ culture?
Vuk: Photography and art play a huge role in the LGBTQ community! Things are changing these days. There is more out there. But for a very long time art was all we had in order to recognize each other. We left one another small signs and hidden codes in art that let us know that there were others like us out there. Art is a mirror to see ourselves in. There aren’t that many mirrors for queer people. The books and films I loved growing up always twisted gender norms in ways that made me feel at home. The L Word played a very important part in my quiet and secret queer life while growing up in Chile. I’m so happy my twin photographed me while I started transitioning because it holds me accountable for all the different shapes my flesh vessel has taken, and it makes me feel seen and beautiful at every stage. Everyone deserves to see that reflected back at them. On a more global note, art has a very real effect on the world. Take for example the Chilean film A Fantastic Woman, which centered around and starred a transgender woman. It won the Best Foreign Language Film in the 2017 Academy Awards. This film helped shine a light onto the laws that the Chilean queer community was fighting to pass for already 7 years. The international recognition helped speed that process up, and forced the very conservative president to recognize us and congratulate the transgender community on a global scale. Art is very tangible. It’s a lifeline for the LQBTQ community. It’s a lifeline for all people.
Mika: I think what Vuk is saying is really important, I’m really grateful that I get to photograph him and make him the centerfold, that there is no question what these photos are of, and that I can make it clear that Vuk deserves a big bright spotlight, as opposed to a quiet and secret queer life. I think one of the most important aspects of art is the use of imagination. The first step towards creating is imagining and believing. If we use our imagination and dream up worlds that challenge our current reality, we can also make good on the promise of what we have imagined, and create it. This question makes me think of something Agela Davis said over the summer:
“If we want to develop an intersectional perspective, the trans community is showing us the way. And we can't only point to, and we need to point, to cases such as the murder of Tony McDade, for example. But we need to go beyond that and recognize that we support the trans community precisely because this community has taught us how to challenge that which is totally accepted
as normal. And I don't think we would be where we are today—encouraging ever larger numbers of people to think within an abolitionist frame—had not the trans community taught us that it is possible to effectively challenge that which is considered the very foundation of our sense of normalcy. So if it is possible to challenge the gender binary, then we can certainly, effectively, resist prisons, and jails, and police.”
I think photography can be a really didactic form of art. With this series specifically we have not only imagined what a queer life can look like, we have also shown you what it can look like, sort of demystifying it.
Courtesy of the artist.