Queer|Art (a non-profit arts organization which serves a diverse and vibrant community of LGBTQ+ artists across generations and disciplines) recently hosted it’s Queer|Art Annual Party on November 10. The night, filled with community, accolades, and flowers, showcased and celebrated Black LGBTQ excellence at every turn.
Photography by Summer Surgent-Gough
Black LGBTQ activist and drag artist Junior Mintt appeared as an Annual Party host, and Body Hack, a happy hour and afterparty that raises funds for queer, trans, and non-binary communities, provided DJ sets and dance tracks for the festivities. And, among the night’s honorees were the 2022 Black LGBTQ winners of the Queer|Art|Prize and the Black|Queer|Art|Mentorship Award, orator and community leader Wendi Moore-O’Neal and writer, educator, and activist Alexis De Veaux.
Both Moore-O’Neal, winner of the Queer|Art|Prize for Sustained Achievement, and De Veaux, winner of the Pamela Sneed Award for Black|Queer|Art|Mentorship Artists and Organizers, are based in New-Orleans, and their work honors and resonates with rich, Black (and queer) southern culture. Moore-O’Neal and De Veaux will each receive $10,000 as part of their honors, which will, undoubtedly, assit them in their respection missions to continue to drive Black queer storytelling, amplify Black queer histories, and provide mentorship and support to other Black queer people and artists.
Photography by Summer Surgent-Gough
The Pamela Sneed Award for Black|Queer|Art|Mentorship was specifically founded to honor and acknowledge Black mentors and fellows involved in the Queer|Art|Mentorship (QAM) community who continually work to uplift and amplify critical histories of Black queer mentorship. And De Veaux, author of Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde, was recognized by judges as a “pioneering force” within the queer community, and one whose work has been invaluable to the Black queer community.
Photography by Summer Surgent-Gough
These awards are not only a testament to the powerful capabilities of mentorship, and the difference that mentorship can make in a Black queer artist’s career, but also an acknowledgement of the ways the Black queer community supports, uplifts, and strengthens its own; how we continue to show up for each other, push each other in the direction of our Black queer dreams, and the ways in which Black queer folks offer each other a hand when the rest of the world turns its back.
Photography by Summer Surgent-Gough
In addition to exalting and exhibiting the talents and accomplishments of Wendi Moore-O’Neal and Alexis De Veaux, the Queer|Art annual party and 2022 awards also honored other LGBTQ artists of color. Marie Amegah, stefa marin alarcon, Uhuru Moor, and Grace Rosario Perkins were each recognized as finalists for the Queer|Art|Prize for Recent Work.
At the annual party, stefa marin alarcon was named the winner of the prize for Recent Work, and will receive $10,000 to advance their work and artistic vision. stefa is a Colombian-American musician, multimedia artist, and composer, born and raised in Queens, New York and descended from the Emberá-Chamí people. The award honored and recognized alarcon for their work Born With an Extra Rib (2021), Born With An Extra Rib is a transdisciplinary opera featuring alarcon themself. Emerging from the questions behind their upcoming record, also titled Born With An Extra Rib, this experimental opera creates a structure for stefa to reclaim and return to their body. They used video collage, live music, and ritual performance to ask their most pressing, embodied questions. Through the production, stefa invited the cast, creative team, and audience to engage in an emergent process of collective liberation.
Photography by Summer Surgent-Gough
For the first time, each of the Queer|Art|Prize for Recent Work Finalists, Marie Amegah, Uhuru Moor, and Grace Rosario Perkins, will also receive $5,000 to drive their individual art and missions.
Queer|Art’s 2022 Annual Party was a celebration of the achievements and cultural excellence of numerous Black LGBTQ artists and LGBTQ artists of color, and the night’s success and honorees illustrate the organization’s commitment to LGBTQ art and artists of marginalized and intersectional identities, across the diaspora.
To keep up with all things Queer|Art, check out their website or connect with them on Instagram. Be sure to browse the photo gallery below for an inside look at community and camraderie you might have missed at the 2022 Queer|Art Anual Party.
2022 Queer|Art Annual Party, as photographed by Summer Surgent-Gough
