Freeform Gallery, Fairfield’s popular new bite-sized art space, is proud to be hosting a new exhibition of tintype photography by Iowa City artist Ramin Roshandel, Listen to Me! Showing the work through June 28 at 508 North 2nd Street, Freeform is hosting an artist reception the evening of Friday, June 5, during the town-wide Fairfield First Fridays night. Come meet the artist and see—and hear—the show.
Listen to Me!, features a new collection of photographic portraits of transgender individuals living in Iowa. The show is artfully underscored by a soundtrack of audio recordings—“poems, monologues, dialogues, and anything else the individuals portrayed in this exhibition wanted to share,” says Roshandel.
The theme for this exhibition was chosen after a recent changes were made to Iowa’s civil rights laws stripping away protections for transgender and nonbinary people—anti-discriminary protections that had been added 18 years ago.
“The work presented here centers on visibility, presence, and voice,” says Roshandel. “I invited a group of trans individuals from Iowa to participate in a collaborative portrait project using the wet-plate collodion process—an early photographic technique that requires stillness, care, and time. Each participant received a 5×7” photograph as a gift, while their 8×10 portraits anchor this exhibition.
“Accompanying the images is a layered soundscape composed of audio recordings contributed by each participant,” says Roshandel. “Together, these voices and images stand in quiet but firm resistance—asserting humanity in the face of erasure. This exhibition emerges in response to an act that occurred on February 28, 2025, when Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed a bill removing gender identity from the Iowa Civil Rights Act. Set to take effect on July 1, the law will strip transgender Iowans of state-level protections against discrimination in housing, employment, public spaces, and beyond.”
Visit FreeformArtGallery.com for more information.