Celebrations of Queer Life Through Photography: A Review of “Images on Which to Build 1970s–1990s” at the Cultural Center

A couple of weeks ago, as part of a panel discussion on women’s video cultures and the history of the Guerrilla Television movement hosted by the Chicago-based Media Burn Archive, Tracy Fitz and Barbara Jabaily, two of the founding members of the LoveTapesCollective (L.O.V.E. in the name standing for Lesbians Organized for Video Experience) reflected on their activities in the 1970s. As they described their interest in using video to record lesbian/feminist activities in the 1970s, the two emphasized how exciting and important it was simply to be able to see other lesbians. It’s hard to imagine that now: How radical it was at the time for lesbians, or trans or queer people, simply to be able to see people like them.

 

“Images on Which to Build, 1970s–1990s,” an exhibition currently on view at the Chicago Cultural Center, presents a range of feminist, trans and queer image-making practices that attest to that power but, as the exhibition curator Ariel Goldberg notes in the exhibition text, the image cultures under question went beyond “beyond the visual,” to create space “where felt experiences of affirmation, recognition and connection” too, could be forged.