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Â鶹¹ÙÍø Chris Diani

Chris Diani is a filmmaker and photographer based in Providence, Rhode Island.  A graduate of Seattle Film Institute’s total immersion program, he received an Associate of Fine Arts degree from the Community College of Rhode Island in 2021 and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography with a minor in Art History from the Â鶹¹ÙÍø in 2023.   

Chris's photographs have been published in the Boston Globe, the Art in America Guide, and Options Magazine and are held in the archive of the Holt/Smithson Foundation. Colors of Pride, his solo exhibition of portraits of members of the LGBTQIA+ community, was shown at Â鶹¹ÙÍø Dartmouth's Gallery 244 in 2022. His first feature film, the award-winning gay zombie comedy Creatures from the Pink Lagoon, screened in over 30 cities worldwide and was released on DVD in 2007. 

Statement

A multi-generational family laughing at a homophobic joke told at a holiday meal. An epithet uttered by a parent when he thinks his child is asleep. A bigoted high school principal downplaying a brutal hate crime. A pep talk that unwittingly urges a victim to spend more time with his bullies.  

For a gay American boy growing up in the 1980s, these incidents – and countless others – created a hostile environment, in which my personal, social, and sexual development were negatively affected by societal homophobia and the necessity of the closet. 

My Silence Did Not Protect Me is a series of autobiographical narrative photos exploring those consequential moments where indifference, hostility, or outright violence changed the course of my life. 

The idea for the series was sparked by a quote from painter Louis Fratino, who described his show Come Softly to Me as “a narratively structured exhibition in which I tell myself my own story.” It also draws inspiration from the gay coming-of-age novels of writer Edmund White (particularly A Boy’s Own Story), the narrative photography of David Hilliard and Gregory Crewdson, and multidisciplinary artist Jack Pierson’s Self Portrait project. It is, at its heart, a remonstration of the closet and its toxic effects. The title of the series is a paraphrase of a quote from the late lesbian poet Audre Lorde: “My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.”  

Contact

chrisdiani@gmail.com 

Chris Diani

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