SO HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE WEVE BEEN AWARD THE LEEWAY GRANT! Our project will be an archive of radio technology and it’s embeddment in queer histories and futures. We will document the ways radio has been used as a tool in organizing for social justice, bringing marginalized communities together, specifically through the lens of LGBTQIA radio. We will be researching the 1997 shutdown of a West Philly queer radio station that addressed incarceration, safe drug use, and sex education.
The exhibition will be a documentary work on the history of queer radio, and a presentation of ongoing research into radio technology and futures. We will engage in two connected avenues of work: first, a research period where we collect written and oral histories, and second, a series of educational and exploratory workshops where we will learn about and build transmitters, as well as brainstorming ideas for the future of radio and its continued existence in queer milieux. The research period will culminate in the development of a sound piece utilizing archival recordings, which will serve as a time capsule documenting the voices and lives involved in queer broadcasting.
The goal is the final exhibition and workshop series will bring queer communities together around a shared history and technology that has defined and demarcated the boundaries of togetherness.
