Tourmaline

BLACK TRANS ACTIVIST- ARTIST TOURMALINE VISUALLY DECOLONIZES AMERICA’S DARK HISTORY. INTERVIEW BY BOBBI SALVÖR MENUEZ PORTRAITS BY RICHIE SHAZAM BOBBI SALVÖR MENUEZ — When did you first come to New York, and what brought you here? TOURMALINE — The first time I came to New York, I was visiting. It was 1998, and it was the moment when hip-hop culture was spilling into the mainstream. The same way that I do art now, that music was my life. So much of that moment was moving through the city of New York, and I felt so alive. I just was like: “Wow. There’s so much happening in terms of Blackness and art and music.” I remember it feeling really generative. And so, my path of least resistance… I tried to go to high school here, and that didn’t really work out. And then, I went to college here. So, I moved…