Work by local artists and writers in the trans community. The work celebrates trans lives, preserves and decolonizes our multiple histories, and critiques the transphobic systems we live in.
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Tyrell Blacquemoss (they/he)
Raised in Kenosha, WI — Tyrell Blacquemoss (TBN) is a prophetic dreamworker and descendant of a long line of African priests and Turtle Island medicine people. As a scholarly researcher with a Bachelor’s of Fine Art with an emphasis in Africana Studies and Indigenous Studies from Cornell University, TBN reclaims and continues their family legacy of the science and art of dreaming. TBN has traveled globally studying with shaman, elders, and healers of the following traditions: African diasporic and Western Herbalism, Conjure, Hoodoo, Rootwork, Southern Folk Medicine, Pachakuti Mesa (Peruvian shamanism), Sonoran desert Curanderismo, Toltec - Chichimeca dreamplanting, and diasporic African and Japanese energy healing. They are a 2019-2020 fellow in Freedom School’s National Health and Healing Justice Fellowship. TBN is currently based in Tucson, AZ, training as a birth worker training and an MFA candidate at Prescott College in Social and Environmental Arts Practice with Patrisse Cullors.
Website: https://www.causereign.com/home -
Lupe Sotelo (they/them) - Stems from Them
Created by Lupe (@transplanter_) to connect QTBIPOC to plants as acts of resistance and joy. @stemsfromthem offers free and accessible plants to QTBIPOC in order to disrupt harmful mainstream plant practices rooted in capitalism and white supremacy. @stemsfromthem envisions growing a QTBIPOC plant loving community where connections to plants are freely available for QTBIPOC to access. View Clay Seed Balls. - Willbliss Kim Cass Lim - “Transformation”
Hi I’m Will, I am 39yo, pangender pansexual, and a Korean diasporic person. I am an aspiring midwife and a parent of two grade school children, one of them trans. Making art was my way of processing trauma when a child. Currently, much of my art is themed in gender & reproductive experiences. I am humbled and grateful to reach so many people with this piece.
I am passionate about housing for all and centering the most marginalized amongst us. I practice decentralized mutual aid for collective strengthening of communities. All Black Lives Matter. I am living on O’odham land and honor their ways and strive to support them as much as I can. I am spending time each day holding like a baby, a part of my body which I felt critical of. - Aura Valdes - Laminated Collage
Aura Valdes (They/them) is a Queer/Trans Spoken Word artist living in Tucson AZ. Auras work has been featured at QTPOCFestTucson, Artistic Inqueeries, Tucson Poetry Fest, and Gender Unbound Festival in Austin Texas, as well as the Trans Symposium at University of Arizona.
In a recent piece Aura wrote “My work pieces together a narrative of queerness.. My body was built for the in between spaces and I am an expression of that .”
More poetry & info @ auravaldes.wordpress.com
