With Frank Warren’s community mail- art project PostSecret, postcards have become the latest art craze, and the William Way LGBT Community Center will soon participate in the trend.
The center will feature a new art exhibit, “Trans|Post,” which will include handmade postcards from those in the transgender, intersex, genderqueer, nonconforming or gender-gifted community. The opening reception is from 6-8 p.m. Nov. 9 at the William Way LGBT Community Center, 1315 Spruce St., and the show will run through Dec. 28.
The exhibit is something that has been in Minneapolis-based curator Emmett Ramstad’s head for a while.
“I have wanted to do an open-call transgender/gender-variant art show for a long time,” he said. “When William Way needed a curator for the November show, I knew right away that it would be the perfect location.”
Ramstad said that, in the past, he’s had trouble curating such shows, as it was hard to decide whose work to accept and whose to reject. “Everyone has a really important vision and perspective and often you only have enough wall space to take a portion of submissions,” he said. Ramstad said the exciting aspect about the William Way exhibit is that everyone who submitted a postcard will have their art displayed.
“We have such diverse skills, interests and opinions and this is a great way to showcase them,” he said.
Ramstad said the call for submissions did not specify that participants share a certain message.
“I want people to be able to share what they want to share. This could be their artwork, their political opinions, photos of their family, a list of things they love or a rant about societal gender norms,” he said.
Ramstad anticipates the exhibit will include an array of artistic styles and outlooks on the world and “really be an exhibition that draws viewers into the special, small message that each one shares.”
“By displaying them all together, this show is also bringing together artists, activists, educators and community members that all feel in some way trans or gender-variant and special, and we can see that we are all so unique and creative,” he said. For more information, call 215-732-2220.