Community Events
We are delighted to have begun working with community partners such as Gerber/Hart Library & Archives (the Midwest’s largest LGBQ+ community archives) and Dorothy Downstairs (a Chicago-based lesbian cocktail lounge) to offer public-facing community events that bring LGBTQ+ people together across generations.
It’s a Sign: Queering the Gallery
Diana Solis
In July of summer 2024, artist and alum of the project Diana Solis gave us a tour of the exhibition “Images on which to build, 1970s–1990s” at the Chicago Cultural Center. Following the tour, Solís took photos of members of the dialogue project as part of her latest photographic work-in-progress using portraiture and documentary genres that center on the broadening definitions of kinship and extended family through the lives of close friends and members of her community.
“Images on which to build, 1970s-1990s” presented a range of photographic practices that used the medium as a tool for collectivity and empowerment within interconnected lesbian, trans, and queer grassroots organizing. This exhibition revealed the technologies through which influential image cultures were constructed and circulated. The exhibition presented a range of photographic practices to explore the process of learning within alternative schools, workshops, demonstrations, dance clubs, slideshow presentations, correspondences, and community-based archive projects.
Featured artists and collectives include: Diana Solís, Joan E. Biren (JEB), Lola Flash, the Lesbian Herstory Archives, ART+Positive and the Sexual Minorities Archives, among others. Images on which to build, 1970s-1990s was curated by Ariel Goldberg. The exhibition was co-organized by the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH and the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, New York, NY. The exhibition was originally presented as a FotoFocus exhibition on the occasion of the 2022 FotoFocus Biennial: World Record September 30, 2022 – February 12, 2023.
Annual Queer Elder Panel Discussion at Dorothy Downstairs
As part of Pride month celebrations in 2023 and 2024, the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project partnered with Gerber/Hart and Dorothy Downstairs to host a special LGBTQ+ history event featuring a panel discussion with queer elders from the Dialogue Project and Q&A and meet-and-greet sessions with the audience. The event has sold out both years. Read coverage of the event in the Windy City Times here.
Gerber/Hart Fundraising Gala
The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project was honored to be part of Gerber/Hart’s 2024 fundraising gala. An intergenerational pair of participants from the project, Robert and Emma, had a chance to take the stage to speak about their experiences in front of a packed audience.
Photo Gallery
