PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
The Arts Council of Tuscaloosa
Contact: Kevin Ledgewood
pr@tuscarts.org
205-758-5195, x 6
“PUBLICLY IDENTIFIED” EXHIBIT AT THE DINAH WASHINGTON CULTURAL ARTS CENTER
(Tuscaloosa, Ala.) The exhibition “Publicly Identified: Coming Out Activist in the Queen City” will be displayed at The University of Alabama Gallery and The Arts Council Gallery March 8-April 14, 2017. The galleries are located at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in downtown Tuscaloosa and are free and open to the public.
This historical exhibition of Charlotte, North Carolina’s queer history was created by UA alumnus Josh Burford while at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, where he is the assistant director for sexual and gender diversity. In 2016, it was one of two exhibits to win the Allan Bérubé Prize, which recognizes outstanding work in public or community-based lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer history.
Prior to coming to UA, the “Publicly Identified” exhibition premiered in 2014 at the Levine Museum of the New South in North Carolina. It currently includes an interactive timeline of Charlotte’s queer history as well as various artifacts, such as a tee shirt worn during Charlotte’s first pride parade, publications produced in Charlotte and a stained-glass window made for the first inclusive community center in the city.
Burford said he has always been interested in queer and trans history because it is relatively unrecorded. “When I was at UA, I put together two archival projects with similar foci,” Burford said. “I wanted to see this history, but no one was collecting it.”
To put the exhibit in historical context, UA’s Department of American Studies will also be hosting a lecture in the Black Box Theatre at the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center on March 7 at 5:30 p.m. The lecture, “Picturing Queer Souths,” is also free and open to the public and will be presented by visiting professor and alumnus Dr. John Howard of King’s College at the University of London. The lecture will be followed by a reception and a book signing, during which visitors are welcome to visit an additional exhibit at the arts center, “Family Matters,” which features photographs of queer youth from Alabama.
The University of Alabama Gallery is open weekdays 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and The Arts Council Gallery is open weekdays 9 a.m.-noon and 1-4 p.m.
The Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center is located at 620 Greensboro Avenue in Downtown Tuscaloosa. For more information about the CAC, The Arts Council or Bama Theatre, patrons should LIKE the Facebook page “The Arts Council – Bama Theatre – Cultural Arts Center” and follow tuscarts on Twitter. Call 205-758-5195 or visit tuscarts.org for further information.
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