Protest: Queer Liberation March [street intervention performance] 2021

"Protest: Queer Liberation March" street intervention performance, East Village, NYC 2021, is a site specific street intervention with video projectors that provides a virtual set within which performances and audience participations can take place. Using a set of 8 semi-animated, highly stylized protest movies shot at the NYC Queer Liberation March, 2020 and projected onto buildings along 10 Street in the East Village, NYC, “Protest: QLM” creates an active space where performers and participants can move and interact: groups of pseudo protesters take to the projected environment, with placards and chanting and others are encouraged to enter this virtual space, take a placard and join, chanting along, while being recorded and photographed.

"Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality" took place in NYC in June 2020 on the day that the cancelled, due to CoVid-19, Pride Parade would have happened. Coming from Reclaim Pride, the alternative to the Pride Parade on the grounds of corporate cooption of a protest movement (Rainbow Capitalism), this protest joins with and is inclusive of the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests and redirects a large portion of its focus on issues of police brutality against the Black community and especially Black people of the LGBQ+ community.

“Protest: QLM” depicts, illustrates and brings back to life this demonstration while also enlivening the area occupied by the installation. This gives extension and amplification to the voices of the protesters and opportunity to others to participate where they could not previously.

Made possible by the New York City Artist Corps Award.

The same movies used for projection in this performance were also used to create an award winning linear documentary film titled "Protest: Queer Libertion March For Black Lives & Against Police Brutality 2020"