The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle by Lillian Faderman as it relates to my work is illustrated subtextually through color, diversity, composition and the words, “We Will Be” - an homage to Lubaina Himid's, We Will Be, from 1983.
When considering how to artistically represent a marginalized population, their history, and struggle, I knew that diversity was a key concept to emphasize. As it is expressed in Anisfield-Wolf Assignment,
“...Faderman takes pains to consider the multitude of social oppressions (sexism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism) that worked together to galvanize the gay revolution as well as the many alliances (gay men, lesbians, transgender people, drag queens, feminists, urban and rural communities, the civil rights movement and Black Panthers in particular) that make up the revolution on its many fronts. The struggle cannot and should not be represented as only belonging to one isolated group of people.”
I understood this to mean that within the LGBTQ community and its allies, identity, and how it is defined, is vastly different from one individual's experience to the next. It is through the concept of diversity, as it relates to bodies, sexuality, and race, that I created a foundation for the work. It is from there that I decided two things: that I wanted to represent people of color, and that I wanted to use a lot of colors, literally, in order to bring to mind the rainbow flag, speaking specifically to the LGBTQ community.
The individuals in the image I created have color exploding out of their heads and on their faces and bodies. I did not want the individuals in the images to have any gender markers. We do not know if our central figure is a man, a woman, or neither, for example (though of course, some inferences can be made). The individual on the left wearing what appears to by a military helmet, is a nod to those in the LGBTQ community who serve in the military, or continue to fight to serve despite discriminating laws in place.
Another key factor in the image's composition are the figures' stances and the words across their bodies. Their stance is one of togetherness, and therefore strength and bond. The words, We Will Be is an homage to the artist Lubaina Himid's, We Will Be, from 1983. In that piece, she writes across the skirt of a wooden cut-out figure. One of the main features on the skirt is a handwritten message stating, ‘We will be who we want where we want with whom we want in the way that we want when we want and the time is now and the place is here + there…’ Her words can be interpreted to refer to the resistance that speaks to the black bodies that have to struggle to find space in a world that rejects them. I found that this particularly aligned with the gay revolution as a theme of resistance and the battle to exist in this world.
This exhibit is part of a temporary on-board installation.