Queer Rights Are Human Rights: Panel Discussion

For more than 70 years, poster art has been central in fighting for LGBTQ+ rights. Whether homophobia is institutionalized through legislation or conducted culturally through physical, psychological, or emotional violence, it is a human rights violation. Queer Rights Are Human Rights: Posters of LGBTQ+ Struggles & Celebrations will show the power of graphics to expose injustices, defend rights, and celebrate victories. This is a three-part virtual event that will accompany a digital exhibition viewable here.

Loni Shibuyama (she/her) is an archivist at the ONE LGBTQ Archives at the USC Libraries, the largest LGBTQ archive in the world, where she has worked for 14 years. Beginning in 2017, she initiated and managed a grant-funded project to catalog and digitize over 4000 LGBTQ posters from ONE Archives' vast collection.

Rommy Torrico (they/them) is a formerly undocumented, queer, trans/nonbinary visual artist born in Iquique, Chile; raised in Naples, Florida; and is currently based out of NYC. They have been involved in the (im)migrant rights struggle for several years and infuse much of their work with personal experience and the stories their community shares. Over the years, Torrico’s work has been included in several publications and exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum, the Library of Congress and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía as well as many galleries and museums throughout the Americas and internationally.

féi hernandez (they/them) (b.1993 Chihuahua, Mexico) is a trans, Inglewood- raised, immigrant artist, writer, healer. They have been published in POETRY, Pank Magazine, Oxford Review of Books, Frontier Poetry, The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4: LatiNext, amongst others. They are a Define American Fellow for 2021 and are currently the Board President of Gender Justice Los Angeles. féi is the author of the full-length poetry collection Hood Criatura (Sundress Publications 2020) which was on NPR’s Best Books of 2020. féi collects Pokémon plushies

Jordan Peimer (he/him) has been Executive Director of ArtPower since 2014, the presenting program at UC San Diego, Peimer is responsible for all aspects of the university’s presenting program. His first curatorial season launched in Oct 2015 featuring Brian Eno’s Music for Airports performed by Bang on a Can All-stars in its US premiere at an airport. From 1996-2014, he was Vice President and Director of Public Programs at the Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles. Prior to that, he was a Co-Artistic Director at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica. He has acted as an advisor to an ever evolving series of international programs including the ICA London and he has sat on the Conseil Artistique of Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis. Peimer was an early member of ACTUP Los Angeles and several associated arts collectives including CRITICAL MASS, Radical Exterior Decorators (RED) and ATTACK (Artists Take The Action in Cultural Krisis).

Carol A. Wells (she/her), Founder and Executive Director, Center for the Study of Political Graphics