Sean Fader uses two photographic series to bookend a transformative two decades of LGBTQIA history through the lens of digital photography and its role in queer representation.

A lot has changed since the first mass-market digital camera was released. Not just in the quality or accessibility of digital images, but how we think about image culture. How we think about selfies. How images are tracked and geotagged.How photography builds connections and relationships. How we use it as a historical record. How we celebrate ourselves, and how we memorialize pain.

Sean Fader’s latest exhibition Thirst/Trap, on view (from a safe and social distance) at NYC’s Denny Dimin Gallery, pairs two recent series to address how technology, accessibility, and self-reflection have shaped queer communities and identities. They do this in strikingly different ways - one from a place of celebration, and the other from a place of terror and mourning.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Sean Fader

(content warning: the text accompanying the images for Insufficient Memory describes awful, violent traumatic hate crimes.)