Standing up in the South
If anyone five years ago had told artist Steven Romeo, the founder and executive director of The Change Project, that he would be honored at the White House for something he’s not even trained in, he would have told them, “That’s impossible.”
Now he knows better. He expects better. He expects change.
When he officially started The Change Project in 2012, its goal was the same as it is today: to operate as a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating dialogue around LGBTQ identities and offering support, visibility and greater awareness about understanding intersectionality and how to accept each person regardless of their gender identity and sexual orientation. His vision began with the locals in downtown Birmingham but continues to physically expand in more than 11 states across the South and Midwest, in addition to an active internet and social media campaign.
“In the past, we’ve never seen a social movement happen without seeing a shift in the culture,” he said, and a shift is exactly what he’s aiming for.
A huge component of The Change Project is Our Bodies. Our Lives. (OBOL) which acts as an ongoing LGBTQ campaign combining powder paint, photography portraits and personal stories. Romeo said it strives to humanize queer people and create a conversation that addresses intersectional components in the movement for LGBTQ equality.
In November 2015, Romeo’s work for OBOL was honored at the White House, and he was awarded the LGBT Artist Champion of Change.
Homegrown change
Even almost a year later, he hopes this is just the beginning of OBOL.
“It all kind of boils down to the fact that in Birmingham there’s all sorts of different communities, but the only place we come together is at the bars,” Romeo said. “There’s a lack of communities coming together, and we’re finally changing that.”
Romeo identifies as queer, which is an umbrella term referring to not sexually heterosexual, and non-binary, which means not identifying as specifically feminine or masculine, as do the majority of the people who work under his organization. This is an important part of the organization to him, as well as making Birmingham a safe and comfortable place for all types of people.
For example, on some nights, Romeo wants to wear heels. On other nights, he wants to wear sneakers. It depends on where he’s headed. But on both nights, he said he wants to feel the same amount of comfort and respect from his community.
“There’s this standard for what our bodies should look like. I had culture shock in undergrad coming from a large urban city,” he said.
OBOL originated from his undergraduate art installation at the University of Alabama called Embody Progress, where Romeo used his interest in photography and took pictures of LGBTQ people with the word #Change painted on their bodies, representing how their bodies and stories deviated from the “societal norm” of gender identity and sexuality.
When he moved to Birmingham for graduate school, he continued to network, grow the project and offer open photo shoots in Birmingham and other nearby cities. Then he would share them online.
“We [The Change Project] really believe that in the South, we have to create relationships for change,” he said.
In the summer of 2016, Orlando, Florida, was already on the schedule for a photo shoot before the shooting that killed 49 people at a gay nightclub June 12. Romeo said it was all the more important to go and show support to the Orlando LGBTQ community.
“If we don’t engage in conversations and change hearts and minds, we are going to continue to have people that think negatively in our community and then act on it,” Romeo said. “People are dying every day.”
Reflecting the Community
He also often hosted nearly hourlong private shoots, Romeo said, which provided a more intimate storytelling setting and really allowed him to get to know LGBTQ people in the downtown community. But given The Change Project has grown from a $10,000 operating budget to making $285,000 in gross revenue, Romeo does a lot less photography and a lot more managing these days.
That’s why he has more photographers on board.
Photographer Will Hamilton, who’s been involved with OBOL since last April, was named the fine arts coordinator.
Although his initial interest in photography didn’t begin with purposeful intentions, his eye for composition has led him to OBOL into what he refers to as the more inevitably “psychological aspects of photography.”
“One thing that has kept me with photography is I’m much better at conveying emotion physically than in words,” Hamilton said.
The physicality involved with each portrait of OBOL is crucial, after all. A photo shoot can be an intimate setting, with several minutes spent carefully putting powdered paint on the model and developing the look with them that they want.
If people are uncomfortable in their portraits, it shows, Hamilton said.
There remains an open call for anyone to sign up online who wants to have a free portrait taken for OBOL in a private shoot. If it’s for a pride festival or other event, the setting is more public and timed, with about 25 people signing up for spots throughout the day. In 2017, Romeo plans for OBOL to shoot at least 15 pride festivals.
Romeo said when some LGBTQ or transgender people see their finished portraits, it’s the first time they’ve seen a portrait of themselves identified in a way that they feel actually represents them.
Hamilton said he has friends who fully support the work he does with the Change Project but would never model because they felt like it was too much of a statement about themselves.
Come Monday morning, he said many of the people he knows “put their straight face back on,” and cooperate with the social norms or risk being ostracized or even terminated in a job. Romeo said he feels this exists in the Birmingham bar scene, with LGBTQ people only gathering in the same three to four bars they feel accepted or comfortable in.
Even though the city of Birmingham has been presented with three separate nondiscriminatory ordinances, the city hasn’t passed anything to help LBGTQ people feel safer and supported, he said.
“Something I’ve noticed about professional young queer people in this area, there’s not a lot of politics involved in it, or not as much as there should be because these people are already just trying to exist as themselves in these very straight spaces,” Hamilton said.
Even though Hamilton has been aware of other bisexual co-workers at his jobs, he admits he’s never felt comfortable openly expressing himself in that way in case some of his more conservative co-workers would think about him differently. He is happy now to have an organization where he can talk to people about LGBTQ issues.
“What really drives me is how much something like [The Change Project] would have helped me when I was in high school and figuring out my sexuality because there wasn’t a lot of smaller or local queer access,” Hamilton said.
As a queer youth in the South, he said, there can be a sense of isolation and serious need of belonging. For some people, it can make the difference between life and death. Since he first began doing portraits, Hamilton found that he’s been sharing his own story and opening up more to people because he’s felt a greater sense of the queer community, he said.
Hamilton is driven to be part of the organization mostly by the opportunity for stories to be shared that arises. It gives people that chance to express themselves in a way Hamilton admits he’s still not comfortable enough to always act on.
“[It’s] not always anything earth-shattering, but sometimes the words people choose to represent themselves already carry a heavy connotation,” Hamilton said. “For the sake of that, I never try to step on anyone’s toes.”
Romeo said he hasn’t seen any communication problems involving the models so far, but he said he has had multiple people come up and personally thank him and often cry about how much the various exhibitions of OBOL made them feel part of the community they’re living in.
Sharing the journey
In general, Romeo aims for The Change Project to continue to fund the statistically underfunded LGBTQ awareness organizations of the South.
“I was told I was not accepted or not worth people’s time. I struggled through it a lot, been sexually assaulted twice,” Romeo said, going on to explain that there was a lot of processing that happened as he began to grow The Change Project. “The pink powder represents the violence that society puts on our bodies.”
In Birmingham alone, Romeo said they’ve had more than 400 people buy their Shop Progress tank tops and shirts as of fall 2016. Romeo said each portrait that is shared online has a viral reach of about 40,000 viewers over a two-year life cycle, not counting the additional Facebook-driven clicks. In addition, they also have a brand ambassador program.
The Shop Progress shirts feature both serious sayings like “Be Fearlessly Authentic” and “I am a Voice for Change” and then more playful sayings like “Throw glitter not shade,” “Yaas Queen” and “Keep Calm and Kiss Boys [Girls].”
“Honestly, there isn’t a day on the street where people don’t ask about my shirt or say, ‘Hey, that’s awesome,’” Romeo said. “It at least passively engages Birmingham in a conversation about authenticity where LGBTQ people are identified.”
Even though Sam Landis, a former Change Project intern and model, is much more of an activist than he ever intended to be, he said he doesn’t mind because it’s more important to be available to the people in his community who feel alone. Plus, being part of The Change Project has brought some defining moments, especially the 20 minutes of stripping down to his underwear and letting Romeo put powder paint on him for his portrait. He laughed thinking about the memory, wishing he could retake it with the confidence he has today.
But he said he would rather keep the original portrait since it positively affected so many people and reminded him of a time in his life when he finally got the support he needed.
“It was definitely a really cool experience and definitely a part of figuring out who I was in my journey,” Landis said.
Romeo, Hamilton and Landis all agreed they didn’t know anyone else in the South doing the sort of work OBOL is doing.
“It’s very heavy-handed but kind of delicately in your face, all these bright colors, with very visually interesting people posing in different ways,” Hamilton said. “It’s honestly the story on what it’s like to be queer in the South.”
For more information about getting involved in The Change Project or OBOL, go to embodyprogress.org/.