This week I moved back to VT for my final semester of college, and I've been spending a lot of time thinking about testosterone. I began making phone calls to therapists and insurance companies and naturopaths. One to my ex girlfriend who I wanted to be the first to know about my shift in plans.
It feels so strange that something I qualitatively denied only months ago feels more familiar by the day, like coming home. I've been meditating on what body modification, BDSM and Transexualism have in common. I've been thinking of all the ways we inscribe meaning onto our flesh, of all the events in my life that have marked me against my will. What drives some people to veil those markings and others to display them brazenly?
I think of a scrawny genderqueer lifting up their shirt to reveal the phrase "Faggots Kill Fascists" etched across their pelvis. They told us if they ever go to jail, they want us to raise money to get the tattoo covered up. We joke, what about if we can only raise half? Our our nods build rythms like shudders when he responds, "Let's be honest, the word "Fascist" is what matters here. The others are inscribed over and over in ways I can never erase."
I pause briefly to contemplate what happens in the space where needs converge... the need to make what is felt real, the need to make what is imagined imminent, the need to make what is marked visible. Then, I find a piece of paper as I unpack with a phrase scrawled across it--Where our imagination cannot stretch, we must test our skin--and I wonder if I ever left this place.
Showing posts with label Marlboro College. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marlboro College. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Hammers, Roofs, and Radios (The Podcast)
Location: Marlboro VT, 05344
This is a podcast created by a student-led group during a five-day orientation trip. Andre Perez led four college freshman on a voyage to learn about housing justice that took them from Brattleboro, VT to Northampton, MA to Boston, MA. Along the way the group learned interviewing skills, recording skills, story boarding, and editing. Not only did the group interview experts in the field of affordable housing but they also spent their time doing service learning projects that actually benefited the neighborhoods and individuals featured in this podcast.
This is a podcast created by a student-led group during a five-day orientation trip. Andre Perez led four college freshman on a voyage to learn about housing justice that took them from Brattleboro, VT to Northampton, MA to Boston, MA. Along the way the group learned interviewing skills, recording skills, story boarding, and editing. Not only did the group interview experts in the field of affordable housing but they also spent their time doing service learning projects that actually benefited the neighborhoods and individuals featured in this podcast.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Sober and OVer It (Rant)
Party culture. I feel like I can't get away from it.
When you live on top of mountain, there ain't much you can do for fun but get wasted. At least that's what quite a few people from my college woiuld say. I know that all colleges have a hig level of alcohol-induced stupidity and in fact Marlboro culture is probably better than universityies in the sense that we don't ahve insane binge dirnking. But stuffed away in the backwoods alcoholism is nonetheless an insidious ever present problem. Our school allows students to designate money to activitie and a large portion of the budget annually goes to serving alcohol. When our licor liscence was revoked a week before what usually is one of the biggest parties of the year, the party attendence went from 300 to 30.
So I looked onward in search of a community. I spent the summer in a radical collective that didn't do much in terms of organizing, but was a strong hold of the Chicago radical scene socially. By this, I mean it was a good place to meet people who believed a lot of similar things to me, there were zines around all the time, we threw concerts to benefit political prisoners, and every activist and their brother spent a couple nights on our beat up couches. This summer I learned in a big way how radical culture can be party culture. Sex party, beer party, whiskey party. Even though the house passed a policy discouraging drug use in the house, the party was on. Five days a week the stay-up-till-3-o'clock-drinking ethos imbued the first floor traveling upstairs (where I lived) to the roof for smoke breaks.
What I learned was I am really done. I am done with people yelling outside my door for no reason. With waking up to recycling bins full of beer cans. With floors sticky from god knows what.
I've been back for a "training" which has been a thinly veiled excuse for people leading orientation trips to drink every day, get high, and bar-b-que.
I'm over it, and I don't even know how to get away.
When you live on top of mountain, there ain't much you can do for fun but get wasted. At least that's what quite a few people from my college woiuld say. I know that all colleges have a hig level of alcohol-induced stupidity and in fact Marlboro culture is probably better than universityies in the sense that we don't ahve insane binge dirnking. But stuffed away in the backwoods alcoholism is nonetheless an insidious ever present problem. Our school allows students to designate money to activitie and a large portion of the budget annually goes to serving alcohol. When our licor liscence was revoked a week before what usually is one of the biggest parties of the year, the party attendence went from 300 to 30.
So I looked onward in search of a community. I spent the summer in a radical collective that didn't do much in terms of organizing, but was a strong hold of the Chicago radical scene socially. By this, I mean it was a good place to meet people who believed a lot of similar things to me, there were zines around all the time, we threw concerts to benefit political prisoners, and every activist and their brother spent a couple nights on our beat up couches. This summer I learned in a big way how radical culture can be party culture. Sex party, beer party, whiskey party. Even though the house passed a policy discouraging drug use in the house, the party was on. Five days a week the stay-up-till-3-o'clock-drinking ethos imbued the first floor traveling upstairs (where I lived) to the roof for smoke breaks.
What I learned was I am really done. I am done with people yelling outside my door for no reason. With waking up to recycling bins full of beer cans. With floors sticky from god knows what.
I've been back for a "training" which has been a thinly veiled excuse for people leading orientation trips to drink every day, get high, and bar-b-que.
I'm over it, and I don't even know how to get away.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Hammers, Roofs, and Radios: A Subversive Transmission
Construction dyke and techie tranny seek 7-9 curious adventurers passionate about housing justice, manual labor, and quirky documentaries. Participants can expect to build with and interview a local chapter of Habitat for Humanity. As we gather material to make a podcast about our experience, we will be talking about affordable housing issues and embarking on a day trip to Boston for a gentrification tour. Must be ready for:
-life-altering shenanigans
-mind-expanding discussions
-mind-altering connections
and heavy doses of caffeine.
*positive results guaranteed and no experience necessary
Leadership Camp
I packed up my swimming trunks and granola bars and headed out for a post-graduation leadership camp. The occasion was me having designed a 5 day trip for my school’s unique and apparently award-winning orientation program (see next entry for details on my specific trip). I was a little stressed about giving up three days out of my already tight schedule, but I was dedicated to making the trip a success, and I figured getting to know some of the other leaders could prove useful.
We arrived at a low-key place named “Neringa” without having any idea what was to befall us. The campground was actually a Lithuanian nunnery the school had rented out. We stayed in a gorgeous lodge with exposed wood everywhere. The spacious kitchen was lined around the parameter with cabinets laminated white labels no one could read. There were 22 of us in all.
We played a variety of games led by a too-cheery-to-believe woman with obvious new-agey inclinations. I’ll spare you the details of most. Suffice it to say we spent time rubbing strangers, improvising blindfolded, and no one ever won anything. I wonder what kind of person I would have grown up to be if this all were more familiar than awkward.
My main objective in being there was to get to know my co-leader. I had designed the trip on my own, but needed someone else to help make it a reality. There was A, a woman short in stature but bulky in physique. Her face was full of metal, her tongue split, her dreads ¾ inch in diameter. She exuded toughness and had most recently worked as a bouncer to boot. She was interested in the trip for the construction aspect but her father was a sustainable architect in Boston. Our energies and resources complimented each other. I was impressed by how good of a match we were, and found a lot of comfort in her unfamiliar laughter.
Half way through the trip, she sat down on an unfinished floor and got impaled in the ass. Now, I never saw said splinter, but I hear it was an inch and a half long. I was impressed by how she owned it in the middle of the meeting, I mean really, that might be the most embarrassing moment of her life. Several unsuccessful attempts with and without tweezers resulted in a trip to the hospital. After a one-on-one session with a scalpel, she spent the next two days hocked up on vicodin, which was understandable but rendered her pretty much useless. I did all the work with maybe a little resentment but it’s hard to be grumpy in a beautiful place, in one of my last moments of familiarity before I thrust myself into the unknown.
At the end of the training, I left with a desire to spend more time getting to know A, regret that I hadn’t skipped out on a few activity times to explore the land, and a quiet anxiety about whether or not I was the right kind of person to lead one of these trips.
We arrived at a low-key place named “Neringa” without having any idea what was to befall us. The campground was actually a Lithuanian nunnery the school had rented out. We stayed in a gorgeous lodge with exposed wood everywhere. The spacious kitchen was lined around the parameter with cabinets laminated white labels no one could read. There were 22 of us in all.
We played a variety of games led by a too-cheery-to-believe woman with obvious new-agey inclinations. I’ll spare you the details of most. Suffice it to say we spent time rubbing strangers, improvising blindfolded, and no one ever won anything. I wonder what kind of person I would have grown up to be if this all were more familiar than awkward.
My main objective in being there was to get to know my co-leader. I had designed the trip on my own, but needed someone else to help make it a reality. There was A, a woman short in stature but bulky in physique. Her face was full of metal, her tongue split, her dreads ¾ inch in diameter. She exuded toughness and had most recently worked as a bouncer to boot. She was interested in the trip for the construction aspect but her father was a sustainable architect in Boston. Our energies and resources complimented each other. I was impressed by how good of a match we were, and found a lot of comfort in her unfamiliar laughter.
Half way through the trip, she sat down on an unfinished floor and got impaled in the ass. Now, I never saw said splinter, but I hear it was an inch and a half long. I was impressed by how she owned it in the middle of the meeting, I mean really, that might be the most embarrassing moment of her life. Several unsuccessful attempts with and without tweezers resulted in a trip to the hospital. After a one-on-one session with a scalpel, she spent the next two days hocked up on vicodin, which was understandable but rendered her pretty much useless. I did all the work with maybe a little resentment but it’s hard to be grumpy in a beautiful place, in one of my last moments of familiarity before I thrust myself into the unknown.
At the end of the training, I left with a desire to spend more time getting to know A, regret that I hadn’t skipped out on a few activity times to explore the land, and a quiet anxiety about whether or not I was the right kind of person to lead one of these trips.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Andy for Editor
I've finally become the quintessential Malrboro student. I bitch and moan about how much I have to do, and then I wake up and over commit myself all over again.
That being said... Vote for me
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Productivity, thou art my master
I'm the kind of person who likes to keep busy. I always have a few big projects and a few little projects I'm working on at the same time. I am only a little bit obsessed with productivity. About two weeks ago, I finally reached a point where I can say I am over-committed. But it wasn't until this morning that I paused to realize all the things I am actually working on at the same time (and break down how many hours per week I spend on them)...
1) I am developing a website (2-6)
2) I am continuing my oral history project (1 every other week)
3) I am editing and soliciting content for a history exhibit for this winter (2-3)
4) I am coordinating a college orientation trip for next semester (1-2)
5) I have been applying for internships and related grants (3-5)
6) I am co-teaching a photography class at a local community organization (4-6)
7) I am publishing a book (for money) (9-13)
8) I am coordinating a small-scale literacy initiative (4-6)
9) I am part of a core group of people organizing a divestment campaign on my campus (2-3)
10) I am trying to fix my health issues (which includes weekly doctor or naturopath appts) (2-3)
11) I am trying to write an undergrad thesis (included below)
12) I am posting more regularly on my blog (2-3)
That folks means 32-50 hours on top of being a more than full time student.
For the 19 credits I am taking, I have 10 hours per week in class and am supposed to do 47 hours of work outside of class.
How is this possible? I get academic credit for a couple fo the projects (like the wbepage and the photography class), I get paid for others, I colorize drawings while I wait for my doctor, I e-mail interviewees during class, and I haven't made the progress I need to on my thesis.
1) I am developing a website (2-6)
2) I am continuing my oral history project (1 every other week)
3) I am editing and soliciting content for a history exhibit for this winter (2-3)
4) I am coordinating a college orientation trip for next semester (1-2)
5) I have been applying for internships and related grants (3-5)
6) I am co-teaching a photography class at a local community organization (4-6)
7) I am publishing a book (for money) (9-13)
8) I am coordinating a small-scale literacy initiative (4-6)
9) I am part of a core group of people organizing a divestment campaign on my campus (2-3)
10) I am trying to fix my health issues (which includes weekly doctor or naturopath appts) (2-3)
11) I am trying to write an undergrad thesis (included below)
12) I am posting more regularly on my blog (2-3)
That folks means 32-50 hours on top of being a more than full time student.
For the 19 credits I am taking, I have 10 hours per week in class and am supposed to do 47 hours of work outside of class.
How is this possible? I get academic credit for a couple fo the projects (like the wbepage and the photography class), I get paid for others, I colorize drawings while I wait for my doctor, I e-mail interviewees during class, and I haven't made the progress I need to on my thesis.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Weathering the storm
Despite days without power and a full campus evacuation, things are settling down. There is a provisional power line up at the college so the administrative building is there and we can make contact from town.
The college sent everyone who could work remotely home. An all-community meeting gathered to hear the president give a belated fire-side chat.
The hum of chainsaws emanate from the recesses of the Marlboro woodland. Carpools are heading into town to restock cupboards. Men with cranes will be picking up wires for days yet. Vermont has risen again in community and kindness, with a slightly more pronounced survivalist undertone.
My email works.
My final exam was canceled and my other deadlines got way extended.
And the world turns...
The college sent everyone who could work remotely home. An all-community meeting gathered to hear the president give a belated fire-side chat.
The hum of chainsaws emanate from the recesses of the Marlboro woodland. Carpools are heading into town to restock cupboards. Men with cranes will be picking up wires for days yet. Vermont has risen again in community and kindness, with a slightly more pronounced survivalist undertone.
My email works.
My final exam was canceled and my other deadlines got way extended.
And the world turns...
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Ice Storm Wreaks Havoc on Marlboro College
It's been days since Marlboro, VT has had power. Power goes out in our backwoods corner of the universe fairly regularly. Students stop working and start drinking. The campus becomes a playground of sorts with sleepovers in unlocked buildings with better insulation that the dorms. We joke about it. We got Marlboro College flash lights at registration one year. But this is not the normal power outage.
Two days ago there was a huge ice storm. They closed Route 9, the only main road to the college. It's one of the largest roads in this part of Vermont. I hear from an EMT that there are hundreds of trees down on the 3 mile stretch of South Road, upon which the college is located. power lines, cell towers, even landlines are decimated, lying acros the road in frozen heaps.
I have a friend who cannot get into his driveway because there are three trees down before you even get there.
The dorms are all equipt with electric heating and the only stoves on campus are electric too. The water stops when the power goes out because we depend on an electric pump to get the water up the mountain. We only have a back up generator for one of the dorms and for the Dinning Hall. After two days, the students have been ushered from their dorms. Several are sleeping on the dining hall floor in sleeping bags. Others are crowded into the common spaces of the dorm. Professors and staff members are taking kids into their personal houses. Despite the road closures, the college took a van of kids to hotel rooms for the night.
The server (read e-mail and website) is down, so the school has no way to contact the students like me who live in town and have heat, water, etc.
Finals were supposed to be this weekend into early next week. I have no idea what we're gonna do.
Stay Tuned for more.
Two days ago there was a huge ice storm. They closed Route 9, the only main road to the college. It's one of the largest roads in this part of Vermont. I hear from an EMT that there are hundreds of trees down on the 3 mile stretch of South Road, upon which the college is located. power lines, cell towers, even landlines are decimated, lying acros the road in frozen heaps.
I have a friend who cannot get into his driveway because there are three trees down before you even get there.
The dorms are all equipt with electric heating and the only stoves on campus are electric too. The water stops when the power goes out because we depend on an electric pump to get the water up the mountain. We only have a back up generator for one of the dorms and for the Dinning Hall. After two days, the students have been ushered from their dorms. Several are sleeping on the dining hall floor in sleeping bags. Others are crowded into the common spaces of the dorm. Professors and staff members are taking kids into their personal houses. Despite the road closures, the college took a van of kids to hotel rooms for the night.
The server (read e-mail and website) is down, so the school has no way to contact the students like me who live in town and have heat, water, etc.
Finals were supposed to be this weekend into early next week. I have no idea what we're gonna do.
Stay Tuned for more.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Activist Rehersal
I haven't been posting because I don't feel like I don't have much to tell you most days.
Unless you want to hear about Jewish Anarchism, about a history of radical political counter-culture in America, about assimilation and whiteness making, about radicalization through construction of the Judeo-Christian tradition in the armed services.
Or trans activism. How when we aren't explicit about our motivations, we can undermine them through our organizing. How the trans movement is endebted to second wave feminism. About how empowerment, consciousness-raising, and community building are ways of resisting transphobia in it multifront battleground. About how we forget this.
Thus is the life of an academic I suppose. Here's a try...
I remember the moist air that clung to my jugular as I climbed the stairs to a mod at Hamshire College last semester. Sweat mingled with pizza fumes as I pushed my way through the patch-clad clusters of grunge hold-outs and trannarchists. The room settled for the concert. Young people sprawled haphazardly around the anarchist with a guitar. Piercing matted faces hung in the doorway. Women in flannel sat Indian style, flowing over into cuddle piles on the floor. I came as I had spent most of my days since I moved to Northampton-alone.
The fragrance was distantly reminiscent of a place I could not stand to be anymore but the contrast was real. I felt at home here more than I had in months. Brattleboro hung on their tongues shaped in words like ecology and sustainable agriculture, but they fell silent as he began to wail. Indictments. Patriarchy and corporations. Train-hopping through tunes that laid bare my frustrations. I felt too vulnerable to make eye-contact. I felt to cozy not to.
I invited Evan Greer to my college hoping for a sense of community that always falls short of my expectations. I hoped he could some how jump start my commitment to this place I'd turned my back upon. For all of his charm, he could not. I choreographed the privilege walk effortlessly. I sketched the outline of social justice with my eyes closed. I day dreamed through the mind map of climate change. I was a learned yet terrible activist. I was bored. The exercises felt passe', rote, self-congratulatory even. I feel like I'm stuck in an activist rehearsal, and I'm waiting for the stage call...
Unless you want to hear about Jewish Anarchism, about a history of radical political counter-culture in America, about assimilation and whiteness making, about radicalization through construction of the Judeo-Christian tradition in the armed services.
Or trans activism. How when we aren't explicit about our motivations, we can undermine them through our organizing. How the trans movement is endebted to second wave feminism. About how empowerment, consciousness-raising, and community building are ways of resisting transphobia in it multifront battleground. About how we forget this.
Thus is the life of an academic I suppose. Here's a try...
I remember the moist air that clung to my jugular as I climbed the stairs to a mod at Hamshire College last semester. Sweat mingled with pizza fumes as I pushed my way through the patch-clad clusters of grunge hold-outs and trannarchists. The room settled for the concert. Young people sprawled haphazardly around the anarchist with a guitar. Piercing matted faces hung in the doorway. Women in flannel sat Indian style, flowing over into cuddle piles on the floor. I came as I had spent most of my days since I moved to Northampton-alone.
The fragrance was distantly reminiscent of a place I could not stand to be anymore but the contrast was real. I felt at home here more than I had in months. Brattleboro hung on their tongues shaped in words like ecology and sustainable agriculture, but they fell silent as he began to wail. Indictments. Patriarchy and corporations. Train-hopping through tunes that laid bare my frustrations. I felt too vulnerable to make eye-contact. I felt to cozy not to.
I invited Evan Greer to my college hoping for a sense of community that always falls short of my expectations. I hoped he could some how jump start my commitment to this place I'd turned my back upon. For all of his charm, he could not. I choreographed the privilege walk effortlessly. I sketched the outline of social justice with my eyes closed. I day dreamed through the mind map of climate change. I was a learned yet terrible activist. I was bored. The exercises felt passe', rote, self-congratulatory even. I feel like I'm stuck in an activist rehearsal, and I'm waiting for the stage call...
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Transgender Oral History Exhibit
Background
I started The Transgender Oral History Project as a means to uncover the rich, though often invisible history of transgender political activism. Stories including trans people often become a tiny portion of a subgroup that is largely dominated by normative elements who marginalize them in order to create an image that is more palatable to the mainstream. Furthermore, the narratives Americans are exposed to are so limiting—they are the stories of an individual who struggles with their own body or else the story of victimization by illogical violence. I want to tell different stories… ones that highlight how trans people have been pushed out of self-proclaimed safe spaces and have been abused by the psychiatric and medical establishments under the guise of treating them. I want to talk about the violence that happens when our entire society operates on logics that systematically force trans people to exist on the margins of society—refused healthcare, left out of government programming, and refused gainful employment. But I it would be missing the point to tell a history of oppression without the correlating history of resistance. I want to tell the stories of riots against police brutality, volunteering services in trans-specific health centers, reclaiming public spaces for people who have nowhere else to go, and civil rights marches for legal protections—a legacy of empowerment through community organizing.
Overview: The Basic Idea
I would like to create a multimedia historical exhibit that leads the audience in exploring the
issues that have fostered the evolution of the trans community over the past fifty years. I hope to engage viewers in the passage of time by creating a spatial representation of a timeline that they move through as they move through space. The timeline will portray the events and conditions trans people were operating within, but also the collective responses that enabled trans people to deal with these circumstances. I hope to make viewer think about how this community necessitated by a hostile environment that is not of its making but more importantly, to see the means by which this community has constituted itself.
I plan to accomplish this through using a combination of text, photography, ephemera, audio, and film. The central three AV elements will be video clips of vignettes from the Transgender Oral History Project situated within the context of the time period as created through the timeline. I am concerned with showing how the historical moment frames what is possible for people’s lives by showcasing stories that exemplify how this intersection is experienced.
Audience: Marlboro and Beyond
I see two distinct audiences for my piece—one of normative people with liberal political sympathies and one made up of people who understand themselves as gender-variant.
Of primary concern to me are people who understand themselves as gender-variant. I believe collective action and movement building begins with seeing ourselves as having common experiences and drawing from a shared sense of history as well as having shared ambitions for the future. This project is, at least in part, my own search for community, but I want it to extend further than that. I hope that I can engage other people who identify as transgender as seeing themselves as part of something larger. I want to reach people for whom exploring how the trans community has been shaped and where it is going, is a profoundly personal matter.
My goal is that I can communicate the continuing need for community while encouraging collective action.
My secondary audience is the Marlboro community. I anticipate this exhibit being different in two major ways. First of all, I intend to have more contextualizing information, more explanation and analysis. The purpose of the Marlboro version will be to introduce this community to the transgender community’s struggle and to make connections between the trans community and other communities we study or may even be a part of. In the process of exploring how transgender activism has intersected with, been co-opted by, and collided with the womyn’s and Gay and Lesbian rights movements, I want the community to think about inclusion within their own social circles and subcultures. Secondly, I will be hoping to address to concern stated above about how limited the portrayals of trans people are in mass media by presenting competing narratives. I want viewers to see a more multidimensional version of how trans people understand themselves within the context of broader society.
Logistics: Venues and Timing
Because it will be more of an overview, I feel like I already have access to the material I need in order to create this exhibit on campus. For this reason I would like to explore creating the exhibit next semester. I also understand the drawbacks since it would be more competitive to get gallery space and it would mean my outside examiner could not experience it. I am not even sure that the gallery is the best space for the project because of acoustics (I am concerned about how loud it will be if there are multiple, differing AV components), monitoring (I will be using electronic equipment that is expensive and am unsure of how to ensure it does not get stolen), and space (movement is central to my idea and I am unsure of how to create the kind of movement I want to in that open of a space).
Because my target audience is necessarily a scattered population, I do not know what kind of venues would be most appropriate for this exhibit. There is a yearly conference put on at UVM that I have attended for three years now: the Translating Identities Conference. It seeks to build community and provide a forum for the exchange information among trans communities throughout the northeast. I see my project as being very in line with this goal, so I think it would be a good fit.
I started The Transgender Oral History Project as a means to uncover the rich, though often invisible history of transgender political activism. Stories including trans people often become a tiny portion of a subgroup that is largely dominated by normative elements who marginalize them in order to create an image that is more palatable to the mainstream. Furthermore, the narratives Americans are exposed to are so limiting—they are the stories of an individual who struggles with their own body or else the story of victimization by illogical violence. I want to tell different stories… ones that highlight how trans people have been pushed out of self-proclaimed safe spaces and have been abused by the psychiatric and medical establishments under the guise of treating them. I want to talk about the violence that happens when our entire society operates on logics that systematically force trans people to exist on the margins of society—refused healthcare, left out of government programming, and refused gainful employment. But I it would be missing the point to tell a history of oppression without the correlating history of resistance. I want to tell the stories of riots against police brutality, volunteering services in trans-specific health centers, reclaiming public spaces for people who have nowhere else to go, and civil rights marches for legal protections—a legacy of empowerment through community organizing.
Overview: The Basic Idea
I would like to create a multimedia historical exhibit that leads the audience in exploring the
issues that have fostered the evolution of the trans community over the past fifty years. I hope to engage viewers in the passage of time by creating a spatial representation of a timeline that they move through as they move through space. The timeline will portray the events and conditions trans people were operating within, but also the collective responses that enabled trans people to deal with these circumstances. I hope to make viewer think about how this community necessitated by a hostile environment that is not of its making but more importantly, to see the means by which this community has constituted itself.
I plan to accomplish this through using a combination of text, photography, ephemera, audio, and film. The central three AV elements will be video clips of vignettes from the Transgender Oral History Project situated within the context of the time period as created through the timeline. I am concerned with showing how the historical moment frames what is possible for people’s lives by showcasing stories that exemplify how this intersection is experienced.
Audience: Marlboro and Beyond
I see two distinct audiences for my piece—one of normative people with liberal political sympathies and one made up of people who understand themselves as gender-variant.
Of primary concern to me are people who understand themselves as gender-variant. I believe collective action and movement building begins with seeing ourselves as having common experiences and drawing from a shared sense of history as well as having shared ambitions for the future. This project is, at least in part, my own search for community, but I want it to extend further than that. I hope that I can engage other people who identify as transgender as seeing themselves as part of something larger. I want to reach people for whom exploring how the trans community has been shaped and where it is going, is a profoundly personal matter.
My goal is that I can communicate the continuing need for community while encouraging collective action.
My secondary audience is the Marlboro community. I anticipate this exhibit being different in two major ways. First of all, I intend to have more contextualizing information, more explanation and analysis. The purpose of the Marlboro version will be to introduce this community to the transgender community’s struggle and to make connections between the trans community and other communities we study or may even be a part of. In the process of exploring how transgender activism has intersected with, been co-opted by, and collided with the womyn’s and Gay and Lesbian rights movements, I want the community to think about inclusion within their own social circles and subcultures. Secondly, I will be hoping to address to concern stated above about how limited the portrayals of trans people are in mass media by presenting competing narratives. I want viewers to see a more multidimensional version of how trans people understand themselves within the context of broader society.
Logistics: Venues and Timing
Because it will be more of an overview, I feel like I already have access to the material I need in order to create this exhibit on campus. For this reason I would like to explore creating the exhibit next semester. I also understand the drawbacks since it would be more competitive to get gallery space and it would mean my outside examiner could not experience it. I am not even sure that the gallery is the best space for the project because of acoustics (I am concerned about how loud it will be if there are multiple, differing AV components), monitoring (I will be using electronic equipment that is expensive and am unsure of how to ensure it does not get stolen), and space (movement is central to my idea and I am unsure of how to create the kind of movement I want to in that open of a space).
Because my target audience is necessarily a scattered population, I do not know what kind of venues would be most appropriate for this exhibit. There is a yearly conference put on at UVM that I have attended for three years now: the Translating Identities Conference. It seeks to build community and provide a forum for the exchange information among trans communities throughout the northeast. I see my project as being very in line with this goal, so I think it would be a good fit.
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