James Hosking
I am a Chicago-based photographer, filmmaker, and visual artist. My work has screened internationally and appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Mother Jones, and many other publications.
I developed a multimedia project examining identity, aging, and labor among veteran drag performers in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood. It included a documentary that I directed, produced, and edited entitled Beautiful By Night. I had a multi-year collaboration with the Tenderloin Museum in San Francisco that included screenings, public programming, and a solo photo exhibit of this work. The project was included in the 2020 group show Come to Your Census: Who Counts in America? at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. It was the focus of a solo exhibition at the University of Michigan Institute for the Humanities gallery during January and February of 2022.
I am currently a 2022-2023 HATCH resident at the Chicago Artists Coalition. HATCH is a juried program for emerging and mid-career artists that offers the opportunity to develop new work and produce collaborative exhibitions.
http://jameshosking.com/
Stories from James Hosking
James Hosking & Senn High School
Project Overview
My CPS Lives 2022 – 2023 project focuses on LGBTQ+ youth at Senn High School. I will also be photographing a LGBTQ+ Senn faculty member, Meagan Zeman. They are the teacher who organizes Pride Club. Amid continued LGBTQ+ discrimination and fearmongering in American politics, this project is a way to convey and support the resilience and self-possession of today’s LGBTQ+ youth.
During portrait sessions, I asked the students to handwrite answers to a few short questions: their first name, pronouns, where they feel their most authentic self, and their hopes for the future. I photographed in black and white on medium format film in a variety of locations that show Senn’s historic interior and exterior. I also captured empty landscape shots of the school’s vine covered walls and long interior corridors.
