Queer Networks
Jerri Allyn, Documentation of Laughing Souls/Espíritus Sonrientes, LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), 1979. Courtesy of Jerri Allyn
Queer Networks is an ever-evolving study of the artistic visions that sustain, enliven, and memorialize chosen family. From subculture and punk scenes to the remaking of domesticity to the urgent and ongoing need to give voice to those we have lost, this Initiative is dedicated to imagining and enacting new worlds. Currently, it is guided by the example of artist “Mundo” Meza (1955-1985) and the works on view in Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A., which deepen our understanding of how art movements, cultural community, and queer aesthetics and practices mutually support one another. It also draws on ICI’s long history, supporting timely curatorial projects that shed light on the urgent and ongoing need for institutions that aid LGBTQ+ communities from the HIV/AIDS pandemic during the 1980s and 90s to the ongoing censorship of queer voices around the world. In grief and in ecstatic joy, Queer Networks ask what new possibilities exist when we are drawn together.
