Queer Survivance:
Ron Athey, Pony Lee, madison moore, and Judy Sisneros
moderated by Jeanne Vaccaro
partnership with Roski School of Art & Design, USC
Join us for an intergenerational discussion with individuals who have created and/or participated in communities of queer joy and creativity in order to survive the precarities of late twentieth and early twenty-first century capitalist life in the US. Queer Survivance* is thematically linked to the exhibition Queer Communion: Ron Athey, wherein the photographs, drawings, props, diaries, and other objects connected to the life and work of LA-based performance artist Athey are organized according to the communities the artist has participated in and helped to form. Athey’s savagely joyous practice and capacity to live creatively in spite of the crushing weight of capitalist regimes epitomize queer survivance, and he is joined on the panel by others have developed equally powerful strategies to live queerly and creatively.
*see Gerald Vizenor, ed., Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence (University of Nebraska Press, 2008)
Participants
Jeanne Vaccaro (moderator) — scholar-curator at the ONE Archives and teaches transgender history and theory in the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California. She is co-organizing an exhibition on the visual cultures of sexual science for ICA LA as part of the Getty Foundation’s 2024 Pacific Standard Time cycle.
Ron Athey — artist, writer, and impresario; artist whose work and life are featured in Queer Communion: Ron Athey
Pony Lee — LA-based trans/queer club aficionado and performance artist; co-organizer with Elliot Musgrave of the Cruise LA queer night at the Eagle club; co-organizer of the Mx. Leather competition
madison moore —Associate Professor, Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond); professional DJ and expert on queer dance clubs
Judy Sisneros — artist, documentarian, major figure in LA ACT UP, and queer Latinx activist
Co-sponsored by the ICA LA and the Roski School of Art & Design at USC.
Funded by the Roski School with the assistance of the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies, the ONE Gay & Lesbian Archive, and American Studies and Ethnicity at USC.
