In this interview with Stas Ginzburg, we delve into the stories behind his photographs of New York City’s vibrant queer community. His project, Sanctuary, offers intimate portraits of the homes of queer, trans, and non-binary individuals, providing a window into their personal worlds and the spaces where they find refuge and expression.
Ginzburg’s work is on view through March 30, 2025 as part of Griffin Museum’s online exhibitions programming, Family Matters, focusing on LGBTQIA+ photographers, alongside the works of Jorge Ariel Escobar, Kyle Agnew, and Caleb Cole.
An interview with the artist follows.
Stas Ginzburg is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. He immigrated to the U.S. from Russia as a queer Jewish refugee. In 2006, Ginzburg graduated from Parsons School of Design in NYC, where he studied photography. Since then, his practice has expanded to include sculpture, installation, and performance art. When the protests for racial justice ignited in May 2020, Ginzburg returned to photography to document faces of young activists fighting for Black liberation. He has focused on portrait photography ever since, with an emphasis on the LGBTQIA+ community.
In the fall of 2022, a selection of Ginzburg’s portraits of young queer and trans activists was exhibited at Broward College in Florida. His work was also shown at the Queens Museum and Photoville as part of ‘Live Pridefully, Caribbean Equality Project,’ in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Currently, his photography is on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London as part of ‘Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize’ and Pace University Art Gallery, NY as part of ‘Critical Connections: Protest Photography Past + Present.’
Ginzburg’s images are featured in ‘Revolution Is Love: A Year of Black Trans Liberation,’ a book published by Aperture in the Fall of 2022.
Why are you drawn to portraits? And what’s your philosophy when interacting with these subjects to capture such intimacy?
Portraits tell a story not only about the sitter in the photograph but also about the person behind the lens. I see a bit of myself in every individual I photograph. It is the power of the queer community—we all share similar trauma and experiences. We all deal with rejection and fitting in, finding our path and persevering.
Perhaps these unspoken shared experiences allow me to connect with my subjects on such an intimate level. I am humbled and grateful that I am invited into the homes of my queer and trans siblings. I try to establish a comfortable and safe environment where every person is able to relax and present themselves in a way that feels authentic and dignified. I then use my camera to capture and enhance that feeling.
If a photograph is worth a thousand words, capturing the nuance and complexities of these subjects in one series is impossible. How do you approach fitting as much information about their personhood in a single shot?
It is truly impossible to tell a story of someone’s life in a single frame. An individual portrait is just a small snapshot of a moment in time. Human beings are far more complex than that. However, creating a series of such moments can begin to convey the broader experience of the community as a whole. When we look at the body of work, study people’s faces, what they wear, the objects that inhabit their bedrooms and living rooms, a collective portrait starts to emerge.
I often think of my work as an archive that cements my subjects’ place in history for future generations. Despite our current administration’s best efforts to silence and erase queer, trans, and non-binary folx, my photographs stand as proof that we are here, we exist, we thrive, and we are beautiful.
As a multidisciplinary artist you return to photography in 2020, Why did you have a stronger connection with this medium to capture that moment in time?
When the protests ignited at the end of May 2020, I felt the urge to get out into the streets and see for myself what was happening. There was a lot of confusion and misinformation on the news, and I needed to experience things firsthand. At first, I wasn’t even bringing my camera to the marches because, at the time, I was interested in other forms of art—mainly sculpture and performance. My goal was to observe, listen, and learn.
I quickly realized that this was a historic moment that required documentation. I was in awe of the young generation leading these marches, speaking out about the issues, and sharing their experiences. I started making portraits of people I met in the streets. I remember feeling like a fish back in water, realizing just how much I had missed photography. This newfound excitement for the medium, coupled with the energy of the streets, marked the beginning of a new chapter in my practice.
Being from Russia but based in New York, can you explain your relationship between place and community and/or how you’ve built community while working in an urban setting?
My family immigrated to the U.S. in 1999 when I was 15 and just beginning to come to terms with my queer identity. Up until that point, I didn’t know a single queer or trans person, as it was such a taboo lifestyle in my hometown. There wasn’t a community I could relate to, or at least, I hadn’t discovered one yet at such a young age.
When we moved here, I was busy adjusting to my new life. I started high school in Brooklyn right away and had to brush up on my English. I struggled to relate to my American peers because our upbringings were so vastly different. It wasn’t until college that I began exploring who I was as a gay man.
In reality, it wasn’t until much later that I found my true community and chosen family. In late June of 2020, while photographing in the streets, I came across a group of queer and trans folx called The Stonewall Protests. This space, created by two Black trans women, Qween Jean and Joela Rivera, specifically uplifted queer and trans people of color who were underrepresented in the broader Black Lives Matter movement. This community gathered every Thursday in Greenwich Village and marched across the city, often stopping in the middle of the streets to burst into spontaneous runways and voguing balls—an expression of queer joy and resistance.
It was within this space that I met many people who have since embraced me as their chosen family. I have photographed folx in the streets over and over again and I have now photographed them in their homes. We’ve become close friends outside of the protest scene and we continue to check in and care for one another. I am forever grateful to this community for showing me the power of chosen family and teaching me about radical love, mutual aid, the importance of holding space, and that none of us are free until Black trans woman is liberated.
We love the sequencing of these images. Why did you pick these specific photographs and what is the conversation they are having with each other?
This is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to publish all 19 photographs in the portfolio at once. While I’ve only been working on this series for two years, my goal is to create a collection of 40–50 portraits, enough to fill a book.
For this particular sequence, I thought about how each subject’s energy complements or contrasts with the next. Some portraits are close-ups with bold pops of color, while others recede into the environment and are more introspective. Together, they create a rhythm that reflects the diversity and beauty of the community. My hope is that this arrangement invites the viewer to move through the portfolio thoughtfully, discovering new connections by taking in each individual story, while simultaneously piecing together a collective narrative.
