Lola Flash, “Clit Club Series,” c.1989-90, color c-print, 9 ¾” x 7”. Courtesy the ART+Positive Archives, collection of Dr. Daniel S. Berger/Photo: Lola Flash and ART+Positive Archives

A couple of weeks ago, as part of a panel discussion on women’s video cultures and the history of the Guerrilla Television movement hosted by the Chicago-based Media Burn Archive, Tracy Fitz and Barbara Jabaily, two of the founding members of the LoveTapesCollective (L.O.V.E. in the name standing for Lesbians Organized for Video Experience) reflected on their activities in the 1970s. As they described their interest in using video to record lesbian/feminist activities in the 1970s, the two emphasized how exciting and important it was simply to be able to see other lesbians. It’s hard to imagine that now: How radical it was at the time for lesbians, or trans or queer people, simply to be able to see people like them.

“Images on Which to Build, 1970s–1990s,” an exhibition currently on view at the Chicago Cultural Center, presents a range of feminist, trans and queer image-making practices that attest to that power but, as the exhibition curator Ariel Goldberg notes in the exhibition text, the image cultures under question went beyond “beyond the visual,” to create space “where felt experiences of affirmation, recognition and connection” too, could be forged.

Installation view of work by Joan E. Biren, in “Images on Which to Build, 1970s–1990s,” at the Chicago Cultural Center, 2024/Photo: Nathan Keay

Such a result is palpable in the exhibition. Featuring work from nearly thirty artists, collectives and archives, the show offers both eulogies and celebrations of queer life, and serves as just a small taste of how artists and activists expanded the subjects of photography in the 1970s and eighties while creating alternative models for presenting art and ideas.

The show begins with the work of Lola Flash and features numerous images Flash made using an experimental color-reversal printing technique that resulted in intoxicating, impossible colors and, notably, resulted in the impossibility of determining the race of her subjects. Like many of the artists whose work is on view in the galleries, her practice embodies the inextricable relationship between queer and feminist organizing and other efforts ranging from Black Power to the labor movements of the twentieth century.

Flash’s work shares a gallery with a video presentation of “The Dyke Show,” a traveling slideshow presented here as digital video with sound, in which the artist Joan E. Biren (or JEB) lovingly, and sometimes comically, related the history of lesbians over a series of photographs.

Stephen Barker, “Electric Blanket: AIDS Projection Project,” photo of “Funeral March,” November 2, 1992. The ninth photo in a series of twenty-five images of the election eve political funeral of ACT UP member Mark Fisher (1953-1992) [In the foreground: Joy Episalla]/Photo: Stephen Barker

Slideshows and other alternative modes of exhibiting images were an important tool for queer and minority communities in the 1970s and eighties; just think of Nan Goldin’s landmark work “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency.” Another slideshow Goldin worked on, “Electric Blanket: AIDS Projection Project” and some documentation of its presentation at various locations in the United States, is on view here. Electric Blanket was a work of public art as well as a tool for education and advocacy that mixed portraits of individuals who passed from AIDS and those living with it, with statistics and information on the disease. Created by Goldin along with Allen Frame and Frank Franca the show toured nationally and internationally for over a decade beginning in 1990.

Grassroots organizers and artists did not just rely on slideshows though; newsletters and mail networks were also critical sources of documentation and information for queer communities. Correspondence between trans individuals on view in the show documents the impact of being exposed to information and images such as those Allen Berube presented in a lecture and slideshow in San Francisco in the 1970s in which he related the histories of three women who lived as men at the turn of the twentieth century.

Diana Solís, Women Free Women in Prison, March on Washington, 1979, archival Piezography Print, 16″ x 20”/Photo: Diana Solís

“Images” is heavy on archival material: newsletters, press clippings and excerpts from historically important literature such as Leslie Feinberg’s “Transgender Warriors,” share space with photographs of women and queer people doing the work but also, as in some poignant examples by the Chicago-based photographer Diana Solís, simply being together. The exhibition also includes a re-creation, of sorts, of an exhibition presented in 1991 by the NYC-based Lesbian Herstory Archives. “Keepin’ On: Images of African American Lesbians” was an exhibition co-curated by Herstory Archives members Georgia Brooks, Paula Grant and Morgan Gwenwald celebrating the strength and beauty of the African American lesbian community. In its “re-presentation” at the Chicago Cultural Center, the photographs demonstrate their age and history of use, pinned to aging poster board, their typewritten captions describing the individuals sharing a gaze with contemporary viewers.

The show is by no means exhaustive. It might be best experienced, as the exhibition title suggests, as a prompt to build on, inspiring viewers to pursue further engagement with the history, artists and organizations documented here. Despite what can occasionally feel like too brief a sketch of an organization or artist, Goldberg’s assertion that the work of these artists and activists is not just about representation but about shared feeling and connection is palpable in the ground-floor galleries of the Cultural Center. The affect generated by the exhibition’s often casual accumulation of ephemera and images serves as a reminder of what many of the letters and statements present in the exhibition attest to: the power of (merely) sharing space.

“Images on Which to Build, 1970s–1990s” is on view at the Cultural Center, 78 East Washington, through August 4.

By Joan Tupponce

Five Virginia Commonwealth University students are 2024-25 recipients of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Visual Arts Fellowship for their work in photography, painting and sculpture. 

The three graduate and two undergraduate students are among 19 professional artists and students awarded $118,000 to support their artistic careers. The VMFA began the fellowship program, one of the largest of its kind, in 1940 and has awarded nearly $6 million to more than 1,500 Virginia artists.

“Many of the student winners have said that VMFA’s Visual Arts Fellowships lessen the financial burden of tuition and allow them to more fully immerse themselves in their creative process,” said April Heitchue, the museum’s fellowship coordinator. “The artistic validation that they feel from receiving a fellowship award is also very meaningful.”

Here are the 2024-25 VMFA student fellows from VCU – four from the School of the Arts and one from the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.

Isaiah Mamo

Graduate student in public administration (Wilder School)

Mamo, an Alexandria native, describes their photography “as experimental and queer.”

“My creative process is always a process of addition and subversion. … The people I photograph and stories I tell with my work are often uninhibited and prideful expressions of queerness,” they said.

Mamo specializes in long-exposure photography, specifically light painting, to recontextualize the environment by “adding an often futuristic and mystical look, which have become elements central to my visual aesthetic,” they said. “I started shooting long-exposure self-portraits in my bedroom in high school as a way to experiment and teach myself how to use a DSLR camera, and that experimentation paved the way for the work I’m making now.”

Mamo looks at photography as a synthesis of “my life experiences and a portal into the fantasy worlds in my imagination,” they said. “Making people feel empowered in who they are, while also presenting themselves in ways that are larger than life, is very important to me. Photography to me is documentation, a visual legacy and archive of queer stories and people.”

Rebecca Oh

Graduate student in painting and printmaking (VCUarts)

Painting is a meditative activity for Oh, a Baltimore native who said she finds motivation almost anywhere.

“I have so many muses. Video games, Dungeons and Dragons podcasts, anime, movies – they all inspire me to make,” Oh said. “Seeing beautiful colors inspires me. Having a kind interaction inspires me.”

Oh focuses more now on sculptural paintings — “composed paintings done on three-dimensional wood constructs that I make myself,” she said. “My painting themes are currently about the Korean-American experience, specifically the processing of mental illness, sexual identity and religious trauma. These, sometimes heavy, themes are all packaged neatly in beautiful images.”

Oh will use the fellowship to help fund a research trip to Korea this summer.

“I’ve started using cultural iconography from my ancestral heritage in my work this semester,” she said. “I’m hoping to see these artifacts in person and see as many museums and galleries as possible.”

Tyna Ontko (Cy Twombly Graduate Fellowship)

Graduate student in sculpture and extended media (VCUarts)

Ontko’s interest in sculpture stems from growing up in and around community theater and dance and spending time backstage, where she helped build and paint sets, ready props for shows and pull rigging during performances.

“Through my involvement with those spaces, I developed a sense of how lived experience is shaped through our interactions with objects and materials,” she said.

Ontko is currently working with objects and materials that pull from her everyday experiences. Growing up in the rural Pacific Northwest, she had exposure to wood carving as a medium.

“I do a fair bit of sculpting wood with power tools, an angle grinder being my tool of choice, and I use a chainsaw on occasion. The carvings end up being installed among other items that are collected on walks, in my daily routines and given to me as gifts,” she said.

“I am interested in looking for ways to redeem the tasks that capitalism has made mundane,” Ontko added. “Lately I’ve been working food into my practice, which has allowed me to see going to the grocery store or farmers market with a fresh perspective.”

She describes her work as a “reflection of a life I want to live. Nurturing my ability to continue learning, growing and staying curious is a main priority for me.”

Levi Mason

Freshman in the Art Foundation Program (VCUarts)

Mason’s photography ranges from landscapes to street photography. “I wouldn’t say that I specialize in anything yet. In my opinion, to specialize in something you really have to be an expert in it. I’m still figuring it out and learning,” he said.

Mason, who grew up in Arlington County, sees his photography as an exploration into the beauty of a personal connection with the environment and “all living things around us … and also to invoke new understandings surrounding ongoing issues that face our world,” he said.

Art is how Mason most effectively expresses himself. 

“Without it, I don’t know where I would be,” he said. “So in a way, I need it as a way of expression and communication. There is also so much in this world that is overlooked and overshadowed. Photography is a great way to look back on what we might have missed.”

Laneecia Ricks

Junior in photography and film (VCUarts)

Ricks, who grew up in Suffolk, uses photography to explore the intersections of race, gender, identity and sexuality within the African diaspora in America.

“I seek to create imagery that celebrates and uplifts the beauty of Black culture and its community,” said Ricks, a past VMFA fellowship recipient. “My work seeks to confront stereotypes and normalize conversations around Black sexuality and racial oppression within the Black community.”

Ricks specializes in fashion editorial photography “because fashion is so unique and doesn’t have boundaries. I always ask myself how these garments live on a physical body but also how they live in a space, an unconventional space,” she said. “It gives it a different meaning, and certain aspects would have a powerful significance regarding props, location, garments, etc., just to keep creating authentically.”

Photography “is everything” to Ricks. “It captures life authentically, it can be manipulated, it can be structured, it can be built, it can be physical,” she said. “Photography is something that is just unique to everyone.”

Ah, travel photography. The pursuit of capturing stunning sunsets, majestic landscapes, and that perfect Instagrammable moment. But let’s be honest, it’s not all glamorous locations and envy-inducing feeds. Sometimes, travel photography involves a healthy dose of self-deprecation and the occasional misplaced (or should I say, lost?) piece of equipment.

Here’s a glimpse into my personal hall of shame, a collection of the most ridiculous photography gear I’ve managed to lose while jet-setting around the globe, or even just driving across the country.

Crikey! Where’d the Dundee Go? (Far North Queensland)

Ah, the thrill of wildlife photography! The adrenaline rush of capturing a predator in its natural habitat. Well, that was the plan, at least. This time, however, my FNQ adventure turned into a classic case of digital disaster.

Imagine the scene: I’m on the edge of my seat, heart pounding, camera gripped in sweaty hands. There he is – a magnificent crocodile, and a croc handler, a true “Dundee” in the making, lumbering from the water. This is IT – the shot I’ve been waiting for! I slam my finger down on the shutter button, unleashing a burst mode frenzy worthy of a paparazzi pit. Hundreds of frames captured, perfectly documenting the croc’s every menacing move.

Except… in my excitement (and maybe a touch of heatstroke), I make a rookie mistake. Instead of waiting to turn my camera off before it finished writing to the card, to quickly change an almost dead battery. I mean I didn’t want to miss any of the action. The camera clicks ominously, the red light blinks mockingly, and my heart sinks faster than a stone in a croc-infested billabong. None of those shots saved properly!!!

Did I just dump the digital equivalent of Steve Irwin wrangling a grumpy saltie? You bet I did. Hundreds of action shots, gone. Poof. Vanished into the digital abyss. Thankfully I threw in a spare SD Card (and a fresh battery) and kept shooting, But I had already lost those first killer shots.

The Great Lens Cap Caper (Willunga Beach, South Australia)

Gorgeous beach at sunset? Check. Even a romantic stroll along the water’s edge? Check. Lens cap mysteriously MIA? Double check. Apparently, my lens cap needed a permanent beach vacation. I’m sure it’s buried in the sand there somewhere. I also lost the fallen key from my tripod there too. I hope the fallen key and ens cap will be very happy there. It is a beautiful spot.

The Disappearing Drone Debacle (Port Arthur, Tasmania)

Imagine soaring over the breathtaking coast of Tasmania, capturing the dramatic landscapes from a bird’s-eye view. Except, my drone control skills resembled that of a drunken bumblebee. I didn’t know that the cliffs were made of some mineral that interfered with Wi-Fi signals. One wrong nudge on the joystick, and poof – drone went rogue, disappearing into the vast southern ocean. It would probably still be circling somewhere over the Bass Strait if an errant buffeting breeze blew it far enough out to see to get signal back. I flew it up high and over the cliffs to bring it back in. But it was close!

Lessons Learned (Maybe)

These travel photography mishaps have certainly taught me a valuable lesson (or two). Triple-check your memory cards and don’t turn the camera off before it’s finished writing the images. Lens caps and fallen keys are not optional (and have a tendency to wander). And maybe, just maybe, leave the drone piloting to the professionals.

So, the next time you see a travel photographer looking slightly bewildered, don’t judge. They might just be reminiscing about the time their camera equipment went on an unplanned adventure of its own. Because hey, at least the travel stories are unforgettable, even if the photos aren’t.

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