- Gracie Hagen
- Sex and Sustenance
I was introduced to the work of Chicago photographer Gracie Hagen yesterday when I saw “No Judgements Here,” her series of images depicting various sexual fetishes. After first seeing the photographs, I found myself wondering why the image of a grown man in a diaper felt so life affirming, or why the sight of a woman who appears to have intentionally pissed herself gave me faith in the greater good. Then I realized it was Hagen—and the perspective she offered—that I was responding to. Hagen takes a very humane view of something most of us would profess to rather not see. She creates almost clinical representations of each fetish, stripping them of their outré shock value and leaving us to consider the human beings at the center of it all. I wanted to share Hagen’s work and a bit of the conversation we had about it.