Chronotopia Exhibition

LINEAGE: MATCHMAKING IN THE ARCHIVE II

A love-letter on a red napkin, a pair of sequin gloves, an unpublished sci fi novel, a government security clearance, a photograph of Dining Hall #3 in Topaz, Utah, a gold wheelchair trophy: these are a few of the things that first lured me to the GLBTHS archives. It was an easy seduction; I am a sucker for mystery and have always found the visual evidence of a person’s life uniquely inspiring.

It seems I am not alone. One by one I have been matchmaking people with the archives of those who have died, asking each to invent a response. There are a few guidelines: no one is matched to someone they knew, most pairings cross generations, and the selected collections have not yet been in the public eye. Mostly I use intuition and demographics to match creative individuals with an archive that will turn them on. Intense dyadic relationships between the living and the dead are forming in this process. It is a kind of lineage that resides outside bloodlines and marriage contracts, a lineage that has nurtured us in our LGBT communities forever.

The body of creative work to emerge from this process is becoming visible to the public in exhibitions, presentations and – soon - on the website http://lgbtlineage.net. In 2009, the GLBT Historical Society hosted Lineage’s inaugural exhibition featuring work by the first 11 matched participants and myself. Now, as part of CHRONOTOPIA: the Past. Present and Future of Queer Histories, the work of 8 new collaborators is on view here at SOMArts. For people whose collective and individual traces have so often been erased, taking charge of our community memory is still a radical act.

E.G. Crichton,
Artist-in-Residence for the GLBT Historical Society
LINEAGE Curator

LINEAGE ARTISTS

Elliot Anderson	Terry Berlier

Tammy Rae Carland	EG Crichton

Bill Domonkos	Miki Foster

Jamil Hellu	Dorian Katz

Nomy Lamm	Elissa Perry

Laura Rifkin

SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To the Arts Research Institute of UCSC for funding support

To the GLBT Historical Society for sponsoring me as Artist-in-Residence and trusting me with access to their amazing archives.

To Bill Domonkos for designing 2 Lineage cards and the Lineage website (http://lgbtlineage.net)

To Honey Lee Cottrell for generously giving her photographs of Sally Binford and Cynthia Slater to use in artworks and to expand the archive collections.

To Lynda Koolish for photographs of Pat Parker

To the 18 artists so far who have embraced this project and created fresh new work

To Warren Gracie for amazing installation design collaboration

To Barbara McBane and Susan Working for help with framing