Chai Saeidi speaks for, from, and about a new generation who makes their voices heard to bring attention to how images form ideas of normativity affect the visibility and invisibility of bodies in society, especially when not identifying or not belonging to a defined majority and a majority dictating powerful categories of life and over defined modalities of being. Chai brings together a community of peers to depict forms of belonging, performativity, and being that are not given a priori by society but defined by encounters with individuals who inspire change and diversity and the very possibility of a new world to come and exist. Witnessing and the struggle for self-representation are vital forces where photography plays a key role. Undoing the known, deconstructing it, and building it again through our lenses is an inspiring exercise of sustainable existence. We search for spaces not there unless we call for them, invoke them, and make them visible to ourselves and others.
