‘The world wasn’t ready for me’: Del LaGrace Volcano on photographing S&M scenes, leather-clad lesbians and a drag king self-portrait

Their scandalous work was once banned. Now it’s in museums. The photographer talks about a lifetime defying conformity – and their ‘very active’ sex life

The peaceful Swedish city of Örebro is not where you might expect to find Del LaGrace Volcano, the US photographer known for their subversive images depicting LGBTQ+ communities, drag kings and sexual desire. Yet this is the place they have called home for the last two decades, having moved with their ex-partner, Matilda Wurm, an associate professor at the city’s university. Now, their days are punctuated by walks around a nearby forest and trips to the local outdoor swimming pool with the pair’s two children. It is a far cry from the life they Volcano previously had in London, where they lived in squats, attended S&M fetish parties and documented lesbian cruising culture.

“I do miss it. I think London will always be my city,” Volcano tells me when they pick me up from my hotel in Örebro’s (virtually empty) city centre. Halfway between Stockholm and Gothenburg, the former trading hub known for is medieval castle is “not a queer city”, the photographer admits. Most of their neighbours don’t even know they are queer. Volcano, 68, is intersex and calls themself a “hermaphrodyke” – but these days they “pass as apparently a little old man”, they say with a grimace.
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