Published on 30 maggio 2008
I am a fashion photographer, and one of the marvellous quality of this job is to be able to travel around the world. By doing so not only one sees and discovers new realities, but especially looks at himself and his own world from outside, from a different point of view, which help to relativise ourselves. I think that by travelling around the world not only we discover new realities, we especially discover new ourselves. it is during one of my trips that I met the person i want to introduce to you here. everything started one year ago in Cape Town, South Africa. I was in a work break, peacefully sitting in a bar. It is there that I spotted Lincoln for the first time: a man, actually a male, bold, with a beard, leather pants, white t-shirt, something in between a Harley Davidson rider and a spartan ready for the Termopili war. with an unexpected detail, though: two huge boobs bouncing under the t-shirt. Boobs, real boobs. I would have liked to stop him, speak to him, take a photo of him, but I stood there with a wide open mouth, still, motionless: I have seen many particular people, but he beated them all. I now go back to Cape Town after few months for another job and I ask Davide my producer to look for this mysterious person. When I describe him there is another surprise, Davide says to me:”Sure, Lincoln! I know him very well, he was my professor at university!” Obviously nothing can prevent a man with tits to be a university professor, but, you must agree, it is not very common. After few days Davide finds him, he speaks on the phone to him and we arrange to meet, have a chat and take few photos. Our appointment is at Royale, in Long Street, maybe the best hamburger place in the world. Then we will move to his house to take some pictures. But let’s allow him to talk, Lincoln: “My name is Lincoln Theo, I’m 35 years old, and I live in Cape Town. I have a law degree, a fine art degree, a master in South African social sciences and I’m currently busy with a PHD in social sciences. I’m a lawyer, but I mainly work as a movie author. I teach at Cape Town University. I started modifying my body when I was 20, with the first tattoo. Since then I tattooed almost my whole body, I even lost count of how many signs are on my skin, for me it is only one. After the tattoos I wanted to have more deep intervention on my body, first the piercings, then real body transformations. Amongst others I modified the lobes of my ears, making them longer, wider, and, with a surgical operation, stitching them to the skin of the neck. Right during this operation, done by a plastic surgeon, I’ve seen for the first time silicon prosthesis and I immediately thought that I would have liked very much to have them inside of me. I didn’t want to be feminine, my understanding was that I only wanted to have two beautiful boobs. In fact I never took any hormone. I want to be and to keep being 100% male. It hasn’t been easy to find the surgeon available to do the operation: at the end I convinced one, especially due to the fact that it is all reversible. I never regret my choice, actually I only regret not to have made them even bigger. I absolutely don’t want to be part of a precise and defined sexual genre: I’m not man because I have tits, but I’m totally male, because this is what I want, and I’m not even a transvestite, because transvestites are very different from me. Those who are not satisfied with their sexuality want to change it to something different, to be something else. I’m happy of the way I am now. I’m gay, I love men. I have a steady and long lasting relation with another man. He too sometimes ago had a breast implant. My companion plays the viola with the Cape Town Philarmonic Orchestra. In what I am and what I have done there are in my opinion very strong political and social values: I find in this world and in this society, especially here in South Africa, people are used to look at things on the surface. what I want to do is to shock people, to make them loose references that allow and encourage judgement. I would like people start thinking again without being distracted by appearances and my “apparent” body is the antithesis of a superficial glimpse. I went to America recently for my sister’s wedding, who got married with an indian emigrant who’s now american citizen: it is difficult to imagine more conservative people. If they met me on the street they would have never talked to me not even if tortured. Instead we talked, at the beginning it has been difficult, then it gradually became simple and natural: after one afternoon together they had completely forgotten about my aspect. with my help they had managed to overcome a challenge. People think with an “end point” in mind, society deceives us by establishing some targets, some deadlines that you have to respect to pretend to be happy. I don’t want to be like this, for me every day must be challenging. Africa gives me some beautiful hints. In the zulu culture there is a word I like a lot: UBUNTU. it means people are what they are because of other people. We are the reflection of others. After all, we are the others. I’m interested therefore, thanks to my transmutations, in helping others to confront themselves with something different, getting estranged from their own self. Who am I? Who are we?” I spent the whole afternoon with Lincoln, to interview and photograph him. First at the bar in Long street, then to his house. All I have see and heard did good to me: it made me think. To the simple, obsolete question: Who am I? Who are we?
