$20 Suggested Donation

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In this exhibition, multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and scholar, Thomas Allen Harris, pulls from his vast collection of 1980s black and white photography and 1990s diaristic video entries to demonstrate the ethos of the black queer renaissance of the late 20th century. 

He presents House of Haizlip—a curated selection of photographs from events programmed by his close friend and mentor, Ellis Haizlip, between 1986 and 1989 at the Schomburg Center for Research—and Tahj Diary (1990)—a video where Harris uses the camera as a therapist and discusses the end of his romantic relationship. Together, these works patchwork threads of black queer radical politics and forms of cultural expression including community development, imaginative performance, personal testimony, and self-documentation. They beckon the viewer to critically contemplate the disruptive power that these artistic and cultural strategies had for a generation grappling with the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the individualistic ethos championed by Reagan’s neoliberalism, and the rise of the Moral Majority, which pathologized kinship formations outside of white, heterosexist family structures.

By bringing these archival records into the present, this exhibit plays with time itself. It returns to the past, offering its audience an opportunity to view Harris develop his eye as he moved from photography to video and film. It also invites the viewer to imagine a queerer future, a future filled with tender embraces, deep engagement, and alternative ways of being with each other. 

This exhibit corresponds to his subsequent workshop Queer Mentors: Storytelling Practice with Thomas Allen Harris.