Beyond the critical acclaim he has received for images that transform who we are inwardly, lies an artist whose sensational appetite for discussion around the tabooed and outer box focus has lent not just this country but the world over beauty and meaning and new truth, through breathtaking vantages on our dailies that give pause to new realms of possibility in what we believe we know is so. I had the pleasure to sit down beyond the lens with photographer Peter Lien who recently was awarded the 8th Mr. Queer Philadelphia’s Pick of The Week for the extraordinary vision strength and courage he dedicates to empowering the forgotten and strengthening the weak.

I was instructed to meet Peter for this interview at his home in west Philadelphia, a beautifully appointed English townhouse, decorated in an infusion of French country and American loft design. He greeted me sprawled out on his front lawn with his Dog at his side legs crossed and decorated in cowboy boots with a cowboy hat placed over his face, which he later confessed was in celebration of my previous nights exhaustions at Woody’s bar’s “country night”. He welcomed me for the second time into his world. A quick lunch and a bit of small talk led to leafing through childhood memories a book of articles his mother had written about their nuclear family’s activities each year, and his comparisons to the truth of those journals which he explained in a slightly saucier manner. Drawings he’d created as a boy on his uncle’s farm were packed into drawers with collages, memorabilia, photo albums, and sketch books. Here Peter the military officer, Peter the business owner, Peter the student, the community activist , the child the man the adult who we have come to love and know as Photographer extraordinaire leapt from page after page into the room to show me who he was.

Looking over this journey of work begged questions like “what inspires?” “What makes you different” what makes you tick” to which the answers freely flowed, spewing forth from his heart at 150 miles per-hour? Whereas most photographers are illustrators Peter has always seen himself as a conversationalist. Never caring about creating beautiful images, he was only concerned with meeting people and having a conversation that opened up a physiological moment to be shared through the world.

“It’s the narrative” he says, “for me it’s always about the story … the situation always tells me what to do. Sure I do research but after that the research is done it goes background as a flashpoint if you will to be familiar with” so an illustrator a photographer ehhh…. I never wanted to be a photographer I did not graduate to be a photographer; I just wanted to make observational connections. It’s all about finding (in the words of French photographer Henry Cartier Bresson) “The Decisive Moment” it’s about observing life for weeks to get to the point where one sees it repeating itself.”

For Peter waiting in the “conversation” is integral to being open to what appears next, and that conversation for him creates the platform to stand on what he is really all about; true community activism.

“Photography is like a language or tool if you will for me … I use lenses, video, audio, lilting, my ability to orate, to pull together teams and let magic happen . I have grown as an artist through the experiences I have had. After all, I ran my own business, I was an army officer, I directed political actions, and was appointed by the Mayor to sit on The Ryan White committee. I created the first campaign that got rid of a homophobic drunks on city council. I have a strong sense of public service be it however that my hubris does not allow me to take a front seat in them, I can be gruff and unpredictable enough to be a change agent and that’s what my work is all about!”

Peters latest Campaign which opens with an exhibit at the William Way Center on April 12th is a revival continuum of the 1992 exhibit SEXO which was at the funders root goal, a safe sex campaign meant to promote the use of condoms through imagery in the midst of the HIV AIDS Crisis of the 90’s.

“Elicia Gonzales with Gala approached me about 6-7 months ago saying we want to re-launch SEXO Latex. Having thought about it the original intent of “SEXO” which was too open the conversation larger then HIV AIDS around gay men and how we have sex, I have to get to the root of why we said yes. I have never told this to anyone before but it was really a love story between Kevin (the partner Peter lost to the Schrage of HIV AIDS a year after SEXO Latex’s first poster was complete) and I. we did this when sex was a peril danger to us, we asked the question “why?” why was sex not safe? They wanted us to use the words “have safe sex…. use condoms” but no real dialogue at the heart of the issue had ever come from those phrasings before….NO! Sex is loving, beautiful, hot, romantic even in that period where we were told sex between two men was “immoral”. Not having the conversation about the joys of sex was what was killing people.”

So it was that David Acosta, Peter and Kevin teamed up and chose not only to emphasize a directive with a condom as its central focus, but moreover, asking the question; “Could latex interconnect two people in a hot sexual loving sort of a way?”

“We refused to use the word safe. What is safe? For me it’s risk and joy that are the two quotients on the scale. There is a perfect balance between the two that people have to find. 90% of sex does not involve a condom or a dick! (For instance)Me putting on my cowboy boots and hat was about you. It was sexy it was hot, I watched you take a mental picture that I created for you … that honored the fact that you went dancing last night and it was sexy.

SEXO is just the tip of the iceberg; it’s an ongoing continuum as we have yet to talk about Trans-sex health, Lesbian health, and the whole community at large. We want to start the dialing with a three month archival of what happened in 1992. This is my commitment in this moment to this viral epidemic with a viral information campaign. That’s what this is!

Yes SEXO is a love story between Kevin and myself, it was talking to ourselves about living in the optimistic side of the crisis of AIDS which had no solution knowing he was going to die! This is a continuation of my transformation of our story.

The intensity I portray in life in this project in every project comes from gratitude that can only be expressed in gratitude because I’m alive. That sense of urgency that I have emotionally is from the fact that there is only one thing we have that is important in life and that time… and that we have so little of!”

Having dived into the interpersonal workings of the mind of Peter Lien I had just a few questions left to ask before we wrapped our two hour visit that day and they went something like this.

When your gone and there is no more Peter to walk this earth, What do you want people to remember about you?

“If they remember anything at all that’s fantastic but I would hope they recall the permission I gave them to talk about the things they were told not to. Can you imagine the complexity of all the billions of stories, narratives that have woven their way through time… Pause and take a breath, because all of you are that! How did this happen? It was set in motion so long ago and yet here we are breathing a sigh of amazement that we are all standing here in this room right now!”

So who is Peter Lien, the visionary photographer, community activist, communicator, child, boy, and man? He is a creative process that requires different stages of letting go, stages of creationism tapping into a higher power for inspiration. Who when asked what was next replied…

…”Tomorrow is next, and I’ll tell you when I get there. But being open and available despite all the things I am and am going through has helped me to let go of the past and call that which is gone beautiful so that I can accept the present and tomorrow see the larger picture that this new perspective brings.

Until next time ,

David Alexander Jenkins
Mr. Queer Philadelphia 2013