We Are the Youth Featured in Testimony Group Show
We’re thrilled to announce that We Are the Youth will be featured in Testimony: A Living Exhibition of Queer Youth, showing at Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. The show is on view from July 18-28, 2012 and is part of the 10th Annual Fresh Fruit Festival!
Join us for the Opening Night Reception, Wednesday July 18, 6-9pm.
Hope to see you there!
Alex Reports on Chicago Pride
Alex, (a Chicago-based writer and We Are the Youth guest blogger), attended Chicago Pride on June 24, 2012. Friend Alex on Facebook & Follow Alex on Twitter
With a record attendance of 850,000 people, a new and improved parade route, and a later start time, this year’s Chicago Pride Parade was a time for exploration and improvement. For the participants, this translated into having enough room to walk safely alongside the parade route and a more comfortable parade watching experience.
From me, this was my third Pride in Chicago, and I was marching near the beginning of the parade with Pride of Links, a youth group for queer teens in the Northern suburbs of Chicago run by a wonderful woman named Erchell.
I arrived early and spent a few hours talking to people, taking photos, and soaking up the wonderful Pride atmosphere. (more…)
Sarah Reports on The Transatlantic Pride Art Exhibition!
The Annual Transatlantic Pride Art Exhibition, June 21st, 2012
Clifford Chance, New York, NY
by Sarah Nakano
Last Thursday night, Clifford Chance, a law firm in midtown, had an opening reception for their in-office exhibit “Annual Pride Art Exhibition-New York,” featuring 5 portraits of We are the Youth participants. This opening reception gave me the opportunity to see lots of cool art (Cass Bird, Peter Hujar, Elizabeth Bethea, Tee A. Corinne, etc), drink Coca Cola out of a fancy glass, and also witness the wisdom of Jonathan D. Katz.
Before the reception, Katz spoke about specific “queer artworks” and explored the context and details of each piece. Katz was the first tenured faculty in gay and lesbian studies in the U.S, founder of the Harvey Milk Institute, chair of the Department of Lesbian and Gay studies at the City College of San Francisco, co-founder of Queer Nation SF, and is the co-curator of the exhibit ‘HIDE / SEEK’. Basically he’s a certified genius and he’s the king of the middle of
the venn diagram: QUEER and ART.In my opinion the most interesting idea he talked about was the future of “Queer Art.” What is contemporary queer art, where is it headed, what will it look like in the future? From what I understood, he thinks that as LGBTQ issues + people become more widely accepted, queer art will start to focus more on universal themes like love, loss, etc. I was incredibly impressed with Katz’s insights and how incredibly informed he was. What a badass. You can check out his essays, writings, and resume here.
Overall it was a rewarding experience and it was so cool to see Magda, Trevor, Braxton, Isaac, and Patrick chillin on the wall alongside other queer art.
Alex Reports Back on White House Reception
Alex, (a Chicago-based writer and We Are the Youth guest blogger), attended the LGBTQ Pride Month Reception at the White House. Friend Alex on Facebook & Follow Alex on Twitter
My name is Alex Sennello, and I’m from the Chicago area. That’s my mother and I on a couch in the White House with the presidential seal.
I was there last week for President Obama’s LGBTQ Pride Month Reception for my work with GLSEN, the Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network, at the 2012 Safe Schools Advocacy Summit. While at the summit in Washington, often referred to as SASS by its attendees, I learned skills that I can use to be a political advocate for safe schools legislation like the Safe Schools Improvement Act, a bill that would work to address bullying from the federal level, or the Student Non Discrimination Act, which seeks to give the same protections that prevent discrimination based on sex and race in school to sexual orientation and gender identity.
My work isn’t limited to the national level; at home, I work as a community journalist reporting on queer youth issues, I’m leadership for my school’s QSA, and I work to help create safer schools in my state with the Illinois Safe Schools Alliance. (more…)
Tour of Historic Christopher Street
Today the West Village Coalition called on New York City to make Christopher Street a gay rights landmark. We Are the Youth intern Sarah Nakano’s drawing below makes it pretty clear why Christopher Street is deserving of landmark status.
PRIDE EVENTZ!!!!!
Pride Month is Just Getting Started!!!
Here’s a list of some PRIDE events happening across the country (+Canada),
Compiled by the one and only, Intern Sarah!
Email hello@wearetheyouth.org to share any local listings
The More the Merrier!
june 8th- bklynboihood party @ public assembly, williamsburg, BK
june 8th- brightest young things at capital pride (featuring the badass JD samson!!), howard theater, 9pm, washington dc
june 8 to 10th- los angeles pride
june 8th- vancouver pride parade
june 8th- boston, ma dyke march
june 8th- washington dc: brightest young things, wild life with JD Samson and lots of other rad people, howard theatre, 9pm to 3:30am
june 8th- milwaukee pride parade
june 8th- los angeles west hollywood dyke march, 7:30pm
june 8th- los angeles: lil kim @ fantasy friday at robertson nightclub, 9pm – 2 am, free, 21+
FOR MORE EVENT LISTINGS, VISIT OUR PRIDE PAGE! (to your right!)
PRIDE MONTH IS HERE!
It’s June 1, which is the start of Pride Month.
To celebrate in style, We Are the Youth needs your help!
Spanning the month of June, We Are the Youth is launching a Postcard Campaign and we’d love to have your participation! We’re looking for people around the world to be on our “street team” and help spread the word about We Are the Youth. We want people to share their PRIDE photos with us through Facebook and Twitter, and when they do they’ll be automatically entered to win a $50 gift card and other sweet prizes!
To be part of our street team, email hello@wearetheyouth.org, and be sure to check our 2012 PRIDE PAGE (under Current Events) for all updates!
Exciting News!
If you haven’t been to the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art to check out the Window Gallery, man, do we have GOOD news for you! Leslie-Lohman has extended our stay and the eight We Are the Youth portraits and accompanying quotes will now be on view until June 22, 2012!
So hop on the subway, board the Metro North, jump on your bike, take a stroll (the weather is getting nicer, no excuses for taking cabs, New Yorkers), and go check out the Window Gallery! If you do make it over to Wooster Street, be sure to check out The Piers exhibit, on view inside Leslie-Lohman until July 7, 2012.
*Above photo by Stanley Stellar
Leslie-Lohman Reception A Smashing Success!
Thanks to everyone who came and supported We Are the Youth on Friday at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art (special thanks to DJ Dani DeLuna for spinning dope tunes and to Sarah and Mars for manning the raffle station, helping set up and break down and being generally rad!). It was great to see both familiar and new faces at the reception and we couldn’t have been happier with the way the night turned out. We Are the Youth work will be on view until May 12, 2012, so if you missed the reception, you can still check out the work. In addition, The Piers exhibit (THE PIERS: Art and Sex along the New York Waterfront), is on view until July 7, 2012, and as Diana so eloquently mentioned at the reception, where the Piers exhibit looks to the queer past, We Are the Youth looks to the queer present and future, and it’s an honor for us to be showing next to such an amazing body of work.
Again, thanks to the staff at Leslie-Lohman for all their support, it’s been a pleasure being part of the Window Gallery Project and we’re excited about future collaborations.
Check out more photos from the opening reception here.
You’re Invited!!
The Big Day is Almost Here! Come one, come all (seriously — parents, friends, strangers, youth, senior citizens, you get it…) to the opening reception of We Are the Youth’s Window Gallery display at the Leslie/Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art. Friday April 13, 2012. 6-8pm. Drinks, snacks, raffles, art, good company, sweet tunes will abound! Check our our upcoming events page for more information. Thanks to everyone involved. Hope to see you there.
We Are the Youth work will be on view at Leslie/Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art until May 12, 2012.
Our First Official, Fancy, Newsletter!
If you’re not on our mailing list, you should be. You’ll receive exciting newsletters like the one below! Promises not to bombard you with a million emails, in fact, this is our first official newsletter since the project began in June 2010! Just enter in your email above and hit “Subscribe,” it’s that easy.
Something New Presents: Dress Up//Get Down
Something New Presents: Dress up//Get Down, Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Drom, Ave A between 5th and 6th, Manhattan
Hosted by The Lowbrow Society of the Arts + Something New
by Sarah Nakano
Before entering the doors of Something New’s “Dress up //Get down,” I had little to no idea what to expect. I had been told that it was “more than an art show, more than a party,” and “not a fashion show, a show about fashion.” What does that even mean? I don’t know. I guess in my head I pictured some kind of art-music-fashion-queer culture-dance-glitter fusion; people would be running around and things would be flying around in the air above me and there would be models drinking champagne + painting at the same time, etc. etc. (more…)
