Queer Excursions, by Regi Worles

When I think about what it means to be queer, often times it has less to do with this hyper-individualistic notion of self and more to do with community. There is something almost magical about being a part of a group that is always changing and evolving and developing better methods and language that we can use to understand ourselves. Coming out, an experience physically marked by its difficulty and pull on many of our hearts also has this community value. When someone is able to come out, at the very least to themselves, they join something. It isn’t like some other identities where there is a physical identifier that other people can automatically place on you, rather there is some sort of power in claiming an identity. While that sentiment may not be the same for everyone who participates in coming out, the same thought still stays centered: coming out allows for us to enjoy or merge into a community a queer folks.

Access to this sense of community is still sometimes limited and often a sore sport for folks that are in the community, or as they see it, outside of the community but also detached from others. When I see depictions of queer people in the media, I often feel trapped between expressions of my own identities that I do not like or cannot be. There is something to be said then, about art and media that does its best to provide depth and richness, especially for folks that often feel left out of the conversations surrounding queerness. That is one reason why the Axis Mundo: Queer Chicano Networks in East LA art exhibit at DU was so meaningful to me.

Walking in, you could just feel the special magic of the exhibit. There was legitimately an art piece that created a magical, but also haunting soundscape, almost like the experience of being called to be in the space differently than we typically exist in them. Then the exhibit sort of walked you through history, connecting art and activism in several deep ways. It was meaningful to experience how folks of color in LA were deeply involved in some of the activist movements that we talked about in class, but it was also meaningful to see how that transferred to movements that were focused on the experience that they were having uniquely. Questions surrounding how  movements that we know were so central to queer folks gaining movement and mobility in the United States and the relationship that the artists and groups represented in the exhibit make me think about how they were connected. The installations that really drew me in were the ones surrounding folks living or dying of AIDS. This was probably because I had just drowned myself in Angels in America, but the pieces that were inspired or created with folks with AIDS were incredibly powerful and deeply salient to me. Perhaps the most emotive piece was one with a focus on the anti-gay rhetoric that was regularly spewed out by the church and media surrounding queer folks, but in particular people suffering from AIDS or HIV.

I don’t know how or why this relates back to the work that we are doing in class in some meaningful way.  I know the exhibit had powerful intersections with what we have been diving deep into in class, and that for instance brought words on page to life for me in many ways. The exhibit also offered me some hope as artist and as a queer person, showing me that there is precedent for queer folks of color to be in the art world doing just as much activism as art. It makes me think of our assignment that is due this week surrounding queer calling. How can you hear and accept the call of the world in the most powerful and queer way? The exhibit answered the question seamlessly.