The Emperor's Chambers

This series of images took a long while to finish with a significant between shooting the original source photographs and producing the final composites. The original images where shot when I was beginning to outline and explore the project I had proposed with the working title of Out of Place. Since the original shoots and composite tests many things changed, both in my personal life and in the cultural sphere. Firstly I separated from my then-partner who in parts appear in these images. I had her permission and blessing to use the images featuring her so long as she was not identifiable, but that made it no easier for me emotionally to return to working up close with the images. Eventually I got to a stage of adequate detachment to be able assimilate parts of her into the images.

In fact, the requirement to anonymise the female subject changed the images in a way that I liked. As is often the way in the creative process a serendipitous event led to a positive outcome. For example, see the before and after versions of some images below:

As I said, the cultural milieux seemed to shift between 2021 when I began conceiving of these images and 2025 when I completed this particular set of composite image responses. The debate about trans-identities and as I saw it the problematic conflation which was too often made between sex and gender felt like it had risen to a crescendo then quieted somewhat to a state of calm or sort of equilibrium in the public consciousness. Indeed since the Supreme Court Ruling of April 2025, clarifying the terms of the Equality Act 2010 media attention has largely shifted elsewhere and the enemy within is more likely to be a migrant in a dinghy than a man in a dress.

As things stand I’m not sure where else I can go with this strand of research and particular body of work as for me at least uncontested spaces do not provide particularly fertile soil from which creativity can grow.

Xander Sandwell KliszynskiMay 24, 2025

SuperVisions —

The Emperor's Chambers