Panel Topic: Art and Storytelling; Building Authentic Movements for Equality

In 2012, when artist and director of The Change Project, Steven Romeo was conceptualizing what The Change Project’s artwork should look like, they were always drawn to the idea that queer people should be called what they want to be called. In the first draft of the Embody Progress collection, participants were asked to share a word they most identified with, in addition to the Change picture. Once we moved to the open shoot model, this idea went away. Over the past year they began to play with powder paint and combine the original identity word concept to a new collection called Our Bodies. Our Lives. A conversation that has been missing in the movement for LGBTQ equality is one around humanizing queer people. Not assimilationism, but the idea that queer people are humans and should be treated as such, we are unique in our own identity. In addition, language that is currently used to define queer folks is often times negative, and centered around sex and deviance. This collection focuses on queer people claiming words that they want to be called, and sharing that with the larger southeast community.

Presented by: The Change Project, Create Birmingham, and Yellow Hammer Creative