Lola Flash (b. 1959, Montclair, NJ) is a queer photographer and activist at the forefront of genderqueer visual politics who has been working for over forty years. Their work confronts and dismantles stereotypes around gender, sexuality and race fueling a life-long commitment to visibility and preserving queer black legacies. Their art and activism are profoundly intertwined, playing an integral part in the ACT UP movement during the AIDS crisis in New York and garnering acclaim in the 1989 Kissing Doesn’t Kill campaign. Flash is notoriously known for their cross-color technique or using the 4x5 film format. Flash is continually working on their life-long series titled [sur]passing, which is based on a series of a continuum of larger-than-life size color in which the models are shot with a large format camera from towering urban vantage points, highlighting the re-generation of a new inner-city culture. This series aims to reach the next level, as it will include such nobility as Deborah Willis, Henry Louise Gates, Cornel West, and traveling to every port which African Slaves were dispensed. Their SURMISE series is an account of the various ways queer people are perceived and how visual representations of gender affect our psyches and society. The series features photographs of people from various gender identities. Flash’s lifelong project, [sur]passing, consists of larger-than-life size-colored portraits that examine the impact skin pigmentation plays on black identity and consciousness. This series therefore represents a "new generation" as Flash states, as well as a fresh pride and strength where ambiguity and blurred borders create an individuality that elevates consciousness.