LAKEVIEW — An intricate flower crown inspired by one worn by early gay rights leader Marsha P. Johnson hangs suspended in a new art gallery exhibition, encouraging people to reflect on her legacy.
The installation is part of “Iridescent Footprints: Stories and Glories of Our Lives,” which has an opening reception 5-7 p.m. Friday at the Center on Addison, a community space at 806 W. Addison St. inside Town Hall Apartments, an affordable and LGBTQ-friendly senior living facility.
“Marsha is the crowned mother of queer protest and LGBTQ resilience and resistance,” said creator Yoav Wachs. “I want people to stand beneath the halo and know that they can be like her. We can be as active and resilient as Marsha P. Johnson because our fights are far from over.”
The gallery can also be viewed 9 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Saturday, as well as May 2, 4 and 6.
The gallery was created by participants in the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project, a partnership among the Center on Halsted, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Illinois at Chicago and University of Chicago that brings together older LGBTQ adults and college students to bond over shared meals and art-making while learning their history.
The participants were split into random groups where they got to know each other over at least a five-month period, taking trips to other art galleries or the Gerber Hart Library and Archives for research as they prepared this project.
Wachs, a 26-year-old SAIC student, said his group was inspired by the idea of “chosen ancestry,” or adopting lineage from other LGBTQ people who may not have been directly related but have paved the way for today’s youth to live freely.
They created a hallway, called the Lavender Corridor, filled with poetry, quotes, paintings, a recreation of an iconic T-shirt worn by a bisexual activist and more, Wachs said.
“It’s going to be jam-packed, and everything ties back to this question of what are the movements, people and imagery that have carved out space for us and allowed us to be who we are the way we are today,” Wachs said.
Danie Muriello, 71, also wanted to commemorate Johnson, so she worked with Wachs to create a portrait of the activist decorated with ribbon and an accompanying statement that Muriello wrote to pay tribute to her.
Muriello also created something to honor her great aunt, who would play male characters in Vaudeville but didn’t have the privilege to come out at the time, she said.
The group’s other participants — Lamar Jackson, 72, and Arden Allman, 20 — contributed by creating things like a “mini-museum” of Jackson’s favorite Harlem Renaissance-era artworks and a recreation of Allman’s bookstand at home filled with their favorite queer literature.
“We were able to create this artwork because everyone has their individual talents and was willing to work together, but it’s the intergenerational piece of this that really gave this an enriching quality,” Muriello said.
Another group created an installation full of LGBTQ love letters written using a variety of media like cross-stitching, embroidery, collages and more, said participant Ankit Khadgi, 24.
The group was inspired by a collection of love letters found at the Gerber Hart Library & Archives between a lesbian Chicagoan and her lovers, said Baz Pugmire, 24.
“All of this stuff was really touching, and we couldn’t believe there weren’t more letters in the archives, so we wanted to add to that,” Pugmire said.
Reina Mathis, a 67-year-old who was part of the love letter group, said she felt inspired by the younger artists’ talents and collaborating with them helped her feel more connected to the LGBTQ community.
“I’ve learned so much from them,” Mathis said. “Not only are they so talented, but they’re really good people, and their knowledge of our society and community has been really helpful to me because I don’t know as much about our community as they do.”
Karen Morris, a co-founder and co-facilitator of the project, said these kinds of exchanges are crucial to the project’s success.
“For lots of gatekeeping reasons in society, these are generations that would never interact, especially within the LGBTQ community,” Morris said. “But this project is bridging those divides and allowing people to have some conversations that might not happen and ensuring that our stories aren’t lost.”
The project also has mental and emotional benefits, said Nic Westrate, a co-facilitator, professor at UIC and developmental psychologist.
“Social isolation in the queer community among older adults can be lethal and is a serious problem,” Westrate said. “This is helping them continue to feel connected to their community. For the younger adults, learning their history from those who came before can help as they’re constructing their identity. This whole exchange can be healing.”
Molly Fulop, a research assistant for the project who got involved as a student participant, said these exchanges of knowledge between generations are especially important as attacks on the LGBTQ community, especially transgender people, are on the rise.
“This knowledge is crucial because our community has been facing these issues for as long as we’ve been around, so we can exchange tactics and strategies to fight them,” Fulop said. “But these intergenerational connections also strengthen our foundations. We’re not alone in these fights.”
Wachs said his favorite part of the project is getting to celebrate older LGBTQ adults as trailblazers.
“It’s people like Marsha P. Johnson or Danie and Lamar who have had it way harder than us and really carved these paths for me to be able to walk down the street in short shorts and heels or for Arden to go into academia and have their pronouns respected, acknowledged and celebrated,” Wachs said. “We would not be here where we are without them.”
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