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People Who Came Before Us

Ankit Khadgi
Public exhibition based on the thesis Ankit completed for a Masters of Arts in Visual & Critical Studies, 2024
School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Exhibition summary: Ankit Khadgi is a Nepali-born, Chicago-based queer writer and journalist. During his first year in The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project, Ankit discovered that there was little accessible information about Chicago’s South Asian LGBTQ+ history. Ankit decided to dedicate his thesis to research and writing this history, and is currently turning his thesis into a book. In June 2024, Ankit curated a public exhibition in June 2024 at Chicago’s South Asia Institute based on his thesis research.

This “archival exhibition” is an attempt to disseminate and educate audiences about the rich contributions of South Asian LGBTQ+ activists and organizers who have actively organized and created spaces for each other in this city.

This exhibition serves as a visual repository to remind generations of Chicagoans of the long history of South Asian LGBTQ+ activism in the city and how the generations that came before us supported and stood by each other even when they did not have access to resources, knowledge, and power.

Lastly, this exhibition through a diverse array of archival materials such as photos, videos, flyers, and personal memorabilia, complemented by engaging sit-and-learn installations, offers a unique visual journey into the diverse history of Chicago’s South Asian American LGBTQ+ communities and their numerous community building initiatives.

By reimagining how LGBTQ+ history looked visually, this exhibition not only educated current generations but also imparted a crucial history lesson for future generations to carry on the legacy and resilience of the people who came before us.

Ankit’s exhibition was featured in South Side Weekly in July 2024.

Queering Form: Vulnerability Through Dialogic Oral Storytelling

Isabel Sperry
Completed for a Masters of Arts in Visual & Critical Studies, 2024
School of the Art Institute for Chicago
Isabel presented a section of her thesis at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Masters of Art in Visual & Critical Studies (MAVCS) 2024 Symposium. While this video, unfortunately, does not capture most of the images and video clips Isabel showed, participants’ voices can be heard describing their own experiences. Featured in the video clips are Adam (he/him), Ankit (he/they), Star (she/they), and Dwight (he/him).
Research summary: This thesis demonstrates the ways that intergenerational workshopping of stories aids the development of vulnerability and connectivity through active listening and instantaneous embodied feedback. On December 11th 2023, the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project hosted its first ever storytelling extravaganza. This was an exercise in oral storytelling and intergenerational workshopping as a form of dialogue to foster relationships between LGBTQ+ identifying members of different generations. Textual analysis, ethnographic observation, and interviews conducted with intergenerational workshopping pairs showed how the workshopping experience challenged participants’ willingness and ability to be vulnerable, and that the small moments of embodied feedback they received when telling their stories aloud facilitated trust and safety. These served as moments of connection, made vulnerability more comfortable and desired, and allowed participants to feel listened to and supported in the final event. Through interviews with the intergenerational pairs, we gained insight into the ways that participants became more comfortable with each other and the process of telling their stories over time. Participants who may have reflected on feeling unsure about what story to tell, or about the dynamics of the group, at the beginning of this process, then expressed feeling safe and listened to at the Storytelling Extravaganza. The development of vulnerability through intergenerational feedback and dialogue, paired with the reality of getting up and telling a personal story to an audience of people who have workshopped alongside you, resulted in an event that was charged and emotional, but ultimately, intergenerationally connected.

(Re)Generating Queer Curriculum: Fostering Epistemic Agency Through LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Artmaking

Molly Fulop
Completed for a Masters of Art in Art Education 2023
As part of Molly’s thesis project, they presented at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Masters of Art in Art Education (MAAE) 2023 Symposium and facilitated a panel discussion with four Dialogue Project members who participated in the research. This video is part of the panel discussion. Seated from left to right are Danie (she/her), Lonnie (he/him), Saida (she/her), Katia (she/they), and Molly (they/she).
Research summary: The goal of this thesis project was to explore the potential for an LGBTQ+ intergenerational collaborative arts-based curriculum to foster epistemic agency in 32 LGBTQ+ students and older adults. Within epistemology, epistemic agency describes minoritized individuals’ ability to see themselves and other community members as agents who can access, learn from, and be affirmed in the value of their own and each other’s lived experiences. Within education theory, epistemic agency describes individuals’ ability to self-direct their learning processes and bolster their capacity for knowledge creation. In this study, I suggested an equivalency between these understandings within the context of LGBTQ+ epistemic agency and proposed intergenerational collaborative artmaking as a possible method. I tested the viability of this method by co-creating, activating, and evaluating an LGBTQ+ intergenerational arts-based curriculum in partnership with The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project. This three-part study spanned three semesters and included a week-long public art exhibition featuring participants’ artworks. Data collection involved two sets of interviews conducted at the curriculum’s mid- and endpoints. The resulting 50 interviews produced a majority of responses indicating that engaging in LGBTQ+ intergenerational collaborative artmaking increased participants’ feelings of epistemic agency. This increase was primarily demonstrated by participants’ use of language communicating greater confidence and recognition of the value of their knowledge as it was created, shared, and expressed through their artworks. These responses illustrated the positive impacts the curriculum and public exhibition had on participants, with a majority citing the exhibition’s reception as a catalyst for their heightened feelings of epistemic agency. These findings place new emphasis on the importance of sharing-out one’s work in the process of fostering epistemic agency and forward intergenerational collaborative artmaking as a viable method for further research on LGBTQ+ epistemic agency.