Clouding our binary ideas of gender. In Manifest Lisa Tomasetti reflects on gender identity and the role contemporary photography plays in the representation of the ‘female’ image. In the past, the ephemeral nature of clouds defied scientific classification. Artists saw clouds as anti-structure, anti-order, and representative of the complexity of human mood or aspiration—as transports of gods and angels. Through the constancy and indifference of clouds, Tomasetti responds to historic, costumed representations of ‘authentic‘ gender. The models’ historical costumes define them as hetero-normative, yet closer inspection reveals the costs of conformity and convention. The clothing and gender conventions they symbolise are restricting and restrictive. Depicted in the process of liberation from these constraints—ascendant, carried aloft by the clouds—Tomasetti’s subjects unravel in an un-grounded escape from the restrictions of gender-based impositions. Image: Lisa Tomasetti, Ascendant, 2022/2023.