Maria Gabriela Leon Paez Garcia DYSPHORIA

What struck Maria Gabriela Leon Paez Garcia most in speaking with an old friend who had transitioned from male to female was how much she talked about drowning. The two had initially met in secondary school in Mexico City, where Garcia was born and raised. Garcia reached out to her to collaborate on an assignment on gender she was working on for a course at the Photography Studies College in Melbourne, Australia, where she will graduate in 2019.

The old friend left Garcia close to 20 voicemails that were each roughly 20 minutes long outlining her experience as a transgender person. Garcia took what she learned from them and created “Dysphoria,” a series of ten images that begin with a male figure and end with a female figure. In between are blueand pink-tinted images that suggest a foreign landscape to reflect her friend’s sentiments. “She mentioned feeling very uncomfortable in her body,” Garcia explains. “That’s why I created these landscapes that look kind of familiar, but are very different, and very surrealist.”

The images were taken at the Melbourne Aquarium and Royal Botanical Gardens. The vivid colors were added in postproduction. The series is laid out so that the dominant hue of the photographs gradually transforms from blue to pink—a color scheme that suggests the change from masculine to feminine. Thus far, the images have been exhibited at Queen Victoria Women’s Centre in conjunction with International Women’s Day. Garcia hopes to continue to exhibit “Dysphoria,” and other work in an exhibition context in the future.

—Brienne Walsh

Photo © Maria Gabriela Leon Paez Garcia maria-leon-paez-garcia.format.com