Jason's Big Dump: January 2023
I've been struggling with how best to present the complexity of everything that we've been up to here at Queerly Complex cause it's a lot. Instead of neatly packaging everything into single posts on a topic, I have decided to embrace our messiness by putting it into a form I am hella familiar with: a digital zine (in the shape of a slideshow!)
I love what I created so much, that I'm going to be doing this column once a month. It's Jason's Big Dump, and I'll be including a smattering of shit I've created or co-created over the past month. It's a simple, easy way to share complexity without getting bogged down in trying to connect all the dots or make sene of everything.
The slideshow is embedded below the comments.
To view it as a Google Slideshow, click here.
Jason's Big Dump: Jan 2023 Slide Descriptions
And here are some slide descriptions for you too! Please click through the links to learn more about each thing.
Slides 1-3: I've been creating lots of maps lately. Well, truth be told, I am always creating maps. These are some maps that help explain our Tree of Change, which is a praxis that helps you find, outline, and embody path / ways of liberation from shame, punishment, plunder, domination, and oppression. I made this the week of January 25, 2023.
Slide 4: A recording of my presentation of the Queerly Complex website as part of the Peer-Review Sessions I facilitated on January 7, 2023.
Slide 5: Come join me for a Peer Review Session: Social Media. I'll be facilitating space for us to share our social media questions, challenges, frustrations and get feedback from peers about how they are tackling social media.
Slide 6: Some marketing materials I created for Queer Love 2023. The silhouette of Tray Smith, Founder of Realest Exposure, is from an immersive, participatory art project I did called Be Jason at Black & White Projects, curated by Rhiannon Evans McFadyen, in October 2018.
Slide 7: On Wednesday, January 18, 2023, I co-sponsored an Artist Mixer at Headprint House, located in the Cow Hollow neighborhood of San Francisco. It included an Artist Talk by Midori about her sculpture Tectonic. Check out the Instagram Live recording of her talk.
Slide 8: "Liberation isn't a place. It's a practice," is a quote by Imara Jones of the Translash podcast, who is summarizing a story shared by Qween Jean. Follow Translash wherever you listen to podcasts. And check out Some of Queerly Complex's Anti-Racist Commitments.
Slide 9: This past month Crystal and I facilitated A Space for Dreaming: Equity and Belonging for the Berkshire Museum. Over two hours, participants were invited to experience their and their colleagues dreams of belonging and equity. This is one of our service offerings with Tree of Change. It is part of our Change Management packages. Learn more today.
Slide 10: In fall 2019, artist Rupy C. Tut and I embarked on a path to provide virtual space for immigrant artists across North America to gather, share stories and questions, and cultivate mutual care, aid, and support that resulted in a professional, virtual Art Salon co-sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts in December 2020. Then, life took both of us on a journey. Rupy gave birth to twins, and my dad died of non-Hodgkin's mantle cell lymphoma. In Summer 2021, we reconnected, and our deep camaraderie instigated the launch of what's become the Immigrant Artist Network. Now in it's second year, Queerly Complex is officially providing in-kind administrative support to continue ensuring the Immigrant Artist Network can form as a distributive, peer-based network. Learn more here.
Slide 11: Two photos I snapped of our cats. The black one with the spooky eyes, haunting shadow, and noir coloring is Lilith. The cream one with gray face spotlighted on the charcoal couch is Nyx. Find more of my photos and stuff on Instagram.
Slide 12: Two photos I snapped of flora. One is of a succulent casting a shadow on a pale gray wall. The second is looking up through the branches of a magnolia tree at a flower bathed in the sun.
Slide 13: In Search of Queer Cosmos is the title of a series of digital illustrations of my trying to find queer time-space in this ginormous cosmos of ours. This slide includes a hand-lettered title, a wavy neon looking line at the center is a dot with "be here now" in it, and a gaseous pink and peach planet in a purple universe.
Slide 14: A photo of me working on a diagram of time-space that reflects the way I understand and make meaning of the cosmos. More coming soon. Follow @queerlycomplex on Instagram for more sneak peeks.
Slide 15: An illustration of a map from earlier in January helping me find my place among all the things in my head. Includes nodes with quotes from an episode of For the Wild with Tricia Hersey, quotes from the book The Disordered Cosmos by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, insights from the Peer-based Review Session earlier in the January, reflections on The Fucking Holicraze, notes on a letter to Dear Queer Love, and considerations for the Queer Love 2023 Artist Mixer that was coming up later in the month.
Slides 16 - 18: A selection of photos by Jason Wyman from Golden Hour Drag Show (@goldenhourdragshow on IG )at Golden Gate Park featuring performances by Translucent (@iamtranslucent on IG) and Porcini (@porcini.drag on IG.) View the whole photo album here.
Slide 19: Thank you so much for being curious and clicking through Jason’s Big Dump for January 2023. You’ve made it to the end!
Please click the links and visit the other Queerdos and comrades mentioned in this dump. One way we can work against othering and cultivate belonging is to get to know each other a bit more. One small step down that path / way is to click links, follow folx, sign up for email lists. We can only get free together, and it’s gonna take a whole hell of a lot of us to do so. So let’s link up with our fellow Queerdos & comrades.
Finally, I want to contextualize one thing for you. Everything in this slideshow is art. Everything. Art is how we come to understand, (co-)create, and make meaning of our cosmos. Art is not one thing. Anyone who’s trying to tell you otherwise wants to capitalize on art. And that’s just not a queerly complex way of being in the world.
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