Roman Does Everything: BUTT Magazine issue 32

In late 2022, I took an impulse trip to a small village in the Czech countryside to visit my friend, Roman Hanák. We had met two years prior at a gay resort in the South of France, a world away from his new life working as a tombstone engraver and helping his father with construction jobs. Over four days of shooting and talking, a story unfolded that was more complex and resonant than I could have imagined. This project became a deeply personal depiction of rural queer life in Central Europe.

Publication: BUTT Magazine, Issue #32
Project Title: Roman Does Everything
Location: Uherský Ostroh, Czech Republic
Year: 2023
Featuring: Roman Hanák
Full Interview: BUTT Magazine

On the surface, the story, which BUTT Magazine titled "Czech tombstone engraver can't kiss boyfriend," points to a familiar narrative of repression. But the reality I found was far more nuanced. Roman’s story is a powerful exploration of identity in the modern world.

He is critical of what he sees as a "fake" or performative scene in major queer hubs, yet finds a surprising degree of peace in his small hometown of 4,000 people. The story challenges the simple idea that the city equals freedom and the village equals oppression.

Roman is proudly Roma (or "Gypsy," as he prefers) and his identity is layered. He navigates his relationship with a traditional community, a "communist" grandfather, and his own unapologetic queerness. The most telling details are the most personal. His relationship with a boyfriend who puts his "dick in my mouth" but will not kiss him on the lips is a stark, intimate metaphor for a kind of conditional acceptance that is rarely discussed. His work is deeply symbolic. He learned the rare skill of tombstone engraving from YouTube, finds clients by walking through cemeteries, and is building a life, and a house, with his own hands. It’s a narrative grounded in manual labour, family history, and the tangible business of death.

The goal was to capture this story with the same raw honesty that Roman lives it. I pitched the complete piece (the interview, the writing, and the photographs) to BUTT Magazine. They immediately understood its alignment with their unfiltered storytelling and used it as the cover story for Issue 32.