The Artist

Krista Handfield

Krista Handfield is the Artist and Founder of The Gender Project (GP).

The Gender Project is a “photo-social experiment and installation is constant progress,” since it, like gender, is constantly changing, growing, and reinventing itself.

Gender, as a subject, was silently wound through the core of my art in college.

While getting my BFA at Massachusetts of Art I found that playing with gender roles in images was addicting and photographing strong women powerful, but had not quite learned what it was I was trying to say. I didn’t understand a why a feminist would be angry at beautiful images of a fashion designer, or why dressing a man up as a woman and kissing him as a photo essay was a big deal. In the mid 90’s when I moved to San Francisco I experienced the concept of gender as an expression, and soon after my purposeful and passionate focus began.

I learned what gender is.  I learned what gender is not. I found gender is everywhere and in everything. It is something that affects every person everyday with and without knowing it. It is the ultimate truth and the biggest fallacy. It is a highly charged concept evoking anger and happiness, tears and laughter, judgment and enlightenment, safety and even the reason for death. I learned the value of gender conditioning in capitalism, religion, and oppression and had no choice as a person but to adjust, admit, and reinvent.  

Gender’s very definition is just a social construct, yet we revere it like a stone foundation. It is the base of social revolutions, religious boycotts, legislation, murder, bullying, child rearing philosophies, and the hunt for your perfect mate. What other subject crosses so many divides while creating bigger ones?  Oh, and after all of that, may I remind you-it is still just a social construct.  Gender is not reality or tangible or stable.  Gender is created, expressive and constantly changing.

Currently I live and work as an artist in Providence, RI (the creative capitol). I brought myself back east in 2002 to live and work as artist. I established Krista Handfield Photography, a successful photography business that I love and afforded me to pursue many creative endeavors that (you guessed it) were gender based. I produced sold out drag king shows and the Vagina Monologues and hoped to ease a little of the gender tension I was amongst once again.  I am currently a contributing photographer to Providence Pinup and 

My use and play with gender is an art, an adventure and an experiment. It is NOT an attempt to remove gender from our lives, emasculate men, or accuse people expressing traditional male/female genders to feel bad. As a matter of fact, I love gender, all of the millions of gender expressions and identities in the world. The Gender Project is an experiment about gender and exposing the social conditioning that we didn’t even know we had. It is a place for me to show gender is fluid, personal, and valid in every form.

Thank you, be sure to check out The Gender Project installations.