Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning has partnered with Caribbean Equality Project to present a digital version of Queer Caribbeans of NYC | Stonewall 50, the first-ever multimedia retrospective showcase of the racial and cultural intersections of Caribbean LGBTQ rights activists.
The exhibition contributes to New York City’s immigrant history by expanding on Caribbean immigrant and first-generation Caribbean-American experiences through exploring Queer, Transgender, and Gender non-conforming advocacy.
Queer Caribbeans of NYC showcases the pioneering work of Caribbean activists, organizers, and artists who set the foundation for victories within the Caribbean LGBTQ+ diasporic community, and their contributions to the broader LGBTQ+ liberation movements of New York City. These include Caribbean Pride, Sistas of Caribbean Ancestry (SOCA), Curry Club NYC, Chutney Pride, Urban&Out, the Gay Caribbean USA Pageant, and Caribbean Equality Project.
The archive highlights the racial and cultural intersection of Caribbean LGBTQ rights activists with an extensive repository of photographs, posters, oral histories, and other documentation of well-respected Caribbean LGBTQ rights advocates.
A multimedia timeline that spans the early 1990’s to the present anchors the collection, taking viewers through the struggles against fear and invisibility spurred by colonialism, the migrant “coming out” experience, and the contemporary legal victories in Belize, Trinidad & Tobago and Guyana. Viewers are then given a glimpse into the future of LGBTQ+ rights in the Caribbean diaspora through Trinidadian photographer and filmmaker Masheka Joseph’s original portraits of over twenty notable LGBTQ activists, artists and academics of Caribbean heritage and/or descent.
This pioneering exhibition was first exhibited in September 2019, at the iconic Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City. This online exhibition at JCAL, featuring videos, photographs, and biographical text from the archive, is the first of its subsequent periodic rotations to other venues throughout New York City.
Source: Jcal