Through The Looking Glass

Through the Looking Glass is an abstract collection of films, drawing upon various undercurrents in Lewis Caroll’s iconic novel, Through the Looking Glass as well as the intersection of these themes in modern gay life. In his classic work, Caroll explores the human shadow and its underlying presence in society’s rules and accepted norms that often lead to a breakdown of one’s personal mental health. To crack the code on adult existential angst, one must return to the innocence and self-authority of the eternal child spirit.

At the heart of the child archetype, we find our original fractures of spirit, disappointments, templates for love and relationship, and, of course, sex. The child is also the source of wonder, aliveness, play, the erotic as our collective life-source and wellbeing, our resiliency, and our abilities to see beyond structure into the worlds of our own makings. The best sex starts with our own lingering inner child--who we were before we were shaped into the crafted image of adulthood. 

Consider the ways in which the creation of our identities as gay men has served as defiance against the oppressive forces of mainstream sexual values, highlighting our collective strength to persevere and create from an internal source of authenticity. At the same time, our divergence from the West’s programmatic way of loving and fucking has largely contributed to our deepest, most painful conflicts; we have evolved and channeled the erotic currents that define us even against moral judgment, ostracization, legislation, criminal charges, and, in worst cases, even death. Our collective lack of belonging has often left us competing with each other for love and sex as we recreate cycles of pain in our personal lives, not knowing how to utilize the potent magic buried within each of us. 

We invite you into the heart of the child that remains within you--the source of your own brilliance and unique expression. Through the Looking Glass explores themes of decadence, surrender, emptiness, audacity, gluttony, power exchange, spontaneity, and redemption. In our pain and its transformation, we can transmute our grief into art, free expression, and tremendous personal power.