Jess T. Dugan stopped by to talk about their new photographic exhibition, Currents 120: Jess T. Dugan, on display at the St. Louis Art Museum from September 17th, 2021 through February 20, 2022.  Also talked about is their career in general, and the exhibition/book To Survive on this Shore, among other topics. 

Jess T. Dugan

Jess T. Dugan (American, b. 1986) is an artist whose work explores issues of identity through photographic portraiture. They received their MFA in Photography from Columbia College Chicago (2014), their Master of Liberal Arts in Museum Studies from Harvard University (2010), and their BFA in Photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2007).

Dugan’s work has been widely exhibited and is in the permanent collections of over 40 museums, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the International Center of Photography, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the St. Louis Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the Library of Congress.

Dugan’s monographs include To Survive on This Shore: Photographs and Interviews with Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Older Adults (Kehrer Verlag, 2018) and Every Breath We Drew (Daylight Books, 2015). They are currently working on a new book, Look at me like you love me, to be published by MACK in the spring of 2022.

They are the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, an ICP Infinity Award, and were selected by the Obama White House as a 2015 Champion of Change.

Dugan’s editorial clients include the ACLU Magazine, The Guardian, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, and TIME.

Dugan teaches workshops at venues including the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, CO, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, and Filter Photo in Chicago, IL. In 2015, they co-founded the Strange Fire Collective to highlight work made by women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ artists. Dugan is currently the 2020-2021 Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Teaching Fellow at Washington University in St. Louis.

From Currents 120: Jess T. Dugan, photo by Jess T. Dugan

From To Survive on this Shore, photo by Jess T. Dugan

From Every Breath We Drew, photo by Jess T. Dugan

Podcast curator and editor: Jon Valley, with recording assistance by mid-coast media.