Transformer's co-Founder, Executive & Artistic Director Victoria Reis interviews DC based photographers Cynthia Connolly and Farrah Skeiky about their roles documenting DC's punk and DIY communities. This conversation responds to the exhibition Present Tense: DC punk and DIY, Right Now, Transformer's 17th Annual DC Artist Solo Exhibition, featuring photography by Farrah Skeiky. Present Tense is on view at Transformer January 18 – February 29, 2020. transformerdc.org Farrah Skeiky is a music and documentary photographer in Washington, DC. Raised in Seattle and later in the DC suburbs, Skeiky has been immersed in two regions known for significant contributions to underground music that have informed her work. She began photographing live music in 2008, and her role as a musician as well as a zine maker contribute significantly to her photographic perspective. Her work focuses primarily on punk, DIY, and drag communities. farrahskeiky.com Cynthia Connolly is a photographer, curator, letterpress printer and artist who lives in Arlington, Virginia. She graduated from both the Corcoran College of Art and Design, and Auburn University’s Rural Studio, worked for Dischord Records and booked an avant-garde performance venue, d.c. space. In 1988, she published Banned in DC: Photos and Anecdotes From the DC Punk Underground (79–86) through her independent press Sun Dog Propaganda. Internationally shown and a prolific artist, her photographic work, postcards and books were exhibited in Beautiful Losers in the United States and Europe from 2004–2009 establishing herself as a pioneer in DIY culture. Reviewed internationally, her photography is in many private collections, as well as The J. Paul Getty Museum, The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Smithsonian Museum of American History and the legacy collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. cynthiaconnolly.com. Powered and distributed by Simplecast.