Queer as German Folk
Impressions Chicago

Chicago is known to be a segregated city: the affluent North visavis the socio-economically disadvantaged South and West of the city. Our target audience, the Latinx and Afro-American communities almost never visit exhibition in Loop Downtown Chicago. That's why we chose three exhibition venues: the Leather Archive and Museum in the Edgewater working-class neighborhood, a former meat-packing factory in Back of the Yards, and the Goethe-Institut in the Loop.

Our accompanying film series, which focused on the distribution company Salzgeber, one of the first queer film distribution and production companies, was shown at the home of the Reeling Film Festival in Edgewater.

The gay district Boystown was intentionally not included, mainly because extensive celebrations of the Stonewall Jubilee were already scheduled and took place. After the end of the exhibitions in the three districts, the entire exhibition was shown at the Goethe-Institut during the month of July.

The local component Mapping Queer Chicago: Past and Present illustrated both digitally and as a poster the influences the Latinx and Afro-American communities had on the Chicago queer movement - from historical bars to AIDS/HIV centers to archives and safe spaces, the audience was able to inform themselves with explanatory texts.