ColumbiaMissourian.com – By Lauren Zima
About a year ago, photographer Jane Lavender sat at her dining room table, carefully pairing the words of her subjects with their black-and-white images. As the hours passed, Lavender laid scraps of sentences across the film, giving voice to a group of people who have spent much of their lives in the shadows.
?I live in survival mode ? one day at a time.?
?Invisibility is killing me.?
?I am the space between the box for Boy or Girl.?
Lavender worked for almost 16 hours straight to finish ?Meta-Genesis,? her collection of photos of transgender people and their writings. Transgenders are people who feel that their genders do not match their bodies ? they are men in female bodies or vice versa. ?Meta-Genesis? means ?coming into existence,? and is a reference to transitioning, the process of living life as a member of the opposite sex.