In 2025, Dmae Lo Roberts embarked on a statewide storytelling experience focusing on personal stories from both artists and community members. These stories are a form of living oral history.
I looked up and saw him looking right at me, and I'm just glad I moved right, because moving left would have basically sent me into the centre [of the shot].
Leyton's mother stated, 'None of the boys in that school accepted him. They told him they would never accept him for the way he spoke. He was a sassy speaker, more feminine - not the 'hard boy' type. This wasn't going on for just a little while.'
Founded in 2014 as a tongue-in-cheek alternative to the esteemed Whitney Biennial, the Every Woman Biennial has evolved into an intergenerational showcase that mixes emerging talent with established feminist art stars while maintaining the scrappy, activist energy that inspired it in the first place.
Riot Queens, takes that real act - which sparked San Franciso's 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riot, the first known full-scale riot asserting transgender and gay rights in the U.S. - and explores the emotional boiling point that led to it.
"There was definitely a moment of discomfort at the start," says Deena, but she says her visit to a so-called rage room felt very different to what she'd expected. She didn't feel chaotic or aggressive smashing things up, but instead "surprisingly controlled and a lot more intentional". "Once I settled into it, it felt like more of a physical release as opposed to an emotional outburst," she told the BBC.
One political conversation with a gay friend that I'll never forget occurred the night before Election Day in 2016, where my friend told me that he hoped Donald Trump would win so that "The Revolution" would finally happen. The idea, I suppose, was that Trump would make things so bad that it would finally wake up the proletariat of the world, and it would unite in the ultimate class war to overthrow the messed-up liberal world order,
As if demolishing the East Wing, gutting arts agencies, and slapping his name and face on several federal buildings weren't enough, the US president now wants to do away with a DC building known as the "Sistine Chapel of New Deal art." This week, we reported on a burgeoning campaign to save the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, which houses murals by Ben Shahn, Philip Guston, Seymour Fogel, and other major American artists. We will continue to follow this story.
On a cool winter night in Los Angeles, dozens gathered to protest the Trump administration's attacks on the arts and the recent federal immigration raids in southern California. But these protestors didn't carry signs or chant in front of a government building they recited poems such as Antifa Tea Party and Love in Times of Fascism. They performed anti-fascist improv to a small but lively crowd at The Glendale Room, a library-themed theater, as part of the monthly show Unquiet: A Night of Creative Resistance.
The U.S.'s political landscape - and our daily lives - are increasingly shaped by repression and violence, amplified by a media cycle designed to keep us fearful in the present, uncertain about the future, and depleted. Exhaustion is not a side effect of this system. It is one of its core tools. Last year, I wrote that Donald Trump's attacks were designed to exhaust us. Over the past year, I've watched communities build movements and adapt their organizing under this reality.
Last summer, I did face painting at a block party in my Brooklyn neighborhood. In the sweltering August humidity, I rendered pink butterflies and Spiderman webs on tiny, sticky faces; unsurprisingly, my designs didn't last very long in the bouncy castle. Except for the glitter. For weeks, I found it in my hair, on my cats, in my sink, and in random corners of the house, migrating to and fro like dandelion fuzz.
Black History Month is a time to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements and courageous acts of people of African descent in the United States and around the world. This year, Black History month celebrates its 100th anniversary. And yet, Black History Month has failed to fully acknowledge or celebrate the contributions of Black LGBTQ+ people. Just as Pride Month remains overwhelmingly white in its representation, Black History Month continues to be deeply homophobic in its omissions.
