Memorializing transgender murder victims through art and performance

Jono Vaughan is an artist, activist, professor and the creator of Project 42, a series of works dedicated to memorializing the lives of murdered transgender and gender non-conforming people. Jono and her team develop beautiful, complex and meaningful handmade garments that are then worn by a collaborator who performs acts—from the mundane to the momentous—that the memorialized victim will never again experience for themselves. Jono shares the vision and purpose for her work and allows us to see one of her garments come to life. Featuring a performance by Randy Ford memorializing the 2011 murder victim Tyra Trent. Jono Vaughan is an artist, teacher, and transgender activist. In 2011 Vaughan began to openly make work as a trans woman and began a number of ongoing bodies of work including Project 42, The Ornamental Self, and Safety in Numbers. She holds a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and an MFA from the University of South Florida. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the exhibitions MOTHA and Chris E. Vargas Present: Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects at the Henry Art Gallery and We the People at the Minnesota Museum of American Art. She received Seattle Art Museum’s 2017 Betty Bowen Award and exhibited Jono Vaughan: Project 42 at the museum. Her work has been featured in The Advocate, Surface Design Journal, City Arts Journal, Tampa Bay Times, and New American Paintings. Vaughan is currently an Assistant Professor of Art at Bellevue College in WA.