Pride month may be over, but, to continue celebrating and supporting the Black LGBTQIA+ community beyond June, fashion brand Ganni teamed up with Queens-born queer photographer, artist, and activist Richie Shazam to release two of Shazam’s prints on the fashion brand’s website. Every penny from the sales of the prints, which are available while supplies last starting Tuesday, will be divided between The Marsha P. Johnson Institute and FOR THE GWORLS, two organizations that are fighting to protect the Black transgender community.
The prints — one being a scene from June’s Black Trans Lives Matter protest in Brooklyn and the other a self-portrait of Shazam from 2019 — are now available to purchase for $100 a piece. “My photography lets me tell stories, send but also transcend messages,” Shazam says in a press release. “My work connects me to who I am, where I come from, and most of all, those around me.” All 100 prints are also signed by Shazam.
Shazam is a longtime friend of the sustainable Danish brand, having walked in a number of Ganni shows, co-hosted parties with the husband-and-wife duo behind the brand, and was featured on the couple’s quarantine podcast Ganni Talks. So when Shazam needed a brand to help raise awareness for the Black trans movement, Ganni was a no-brainer. “It was such an honor,” Ditte Reffstrup, the brand’s creative director and co-founder, says in the release. “If there is anything this lockdown has taught me, it’s that we have to stick together and support each other.”
“I learned the hard way that living your truth authentically is a revolutionary act within itself,” Shazam said in the press release. “This year we are called upon to stand up and against the violence and hate thrust onto so many black and brown bodies.” The Black Trans Lives Matter march followed the deaths of a number of Black trans people, including Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, Riah Milton, Tony McDade, and Layleen Polanco.
“So please continue to donate, protest and speak up. It’s about coming together to build community and provide resources, honoring where we came from, celebrating what we have achieved and recommitting ourselves to the work that’s still left to do,” Shazam said.
You can purchase the signed Richie Shazam prints on Ganni.com now.
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