The Inspiration Behind the Exhibit: How Queer Communities Shape Visual Art and Culture

How do queer communities take charge of their own stories – beyond what is officially recorded in historical documents and the mainstream? The new exhibit in the main lobby of Shields Library, in front of Archives and Special Collections, answers this question. The exhibit “Making Our Mark: Queer Visual Art and Culture in the Modern Era” explores the different ways queer communities express themselves and their identities, showing how they reclaim their pasts, presents and futures along the way.

The UC Davis Library has a strong collection of rare books, pamphlets, and serials from the LGBT community in the US. Consisting of over 3,000 items, the LGBTQIA+ History and Culture Collection provides insight into the emergence of queer communities in California and the country throughout the 20th century. Exhibit curator Ali Blecman also included objects from the Fine Press and Book Arts Collection and the Avant Garde Poetry Collection in the exhibit. 

Inspiration from family 

Blecman, a former History and English double major, has always been passionate about visual art and poetry. After graduating from UC Davis, she went on to graduate school where she studied memory and queer disco in San Francisco for her master’s thesis – inspired by what she had discovered about her uncle’s time there in the 1970s and 80s.  

“My uncle was involved in the scene. He was a producer and wrote some songs. I didn’t know about it until I stumbled across a book about him,” said Blecman. “My dad never talked about it, and I wanted to do a deep dive, which became my thesis.” 

When Blecman returned to UC Davis last September to work as a public services assistant at the library, she was reminded of her thesis project after browsing the different LGBT resources in Archives and Special Collections. 

“I wanted to be able to help people,” said Blecman. “I saw that we had an LGBT History Collection that had a lot of visual art components, books and poetry. I thought it would apply to the lens I used in my master’s thesis and [that it would] be cool to propel it further.”

Creating the exhibit

In creating “Making Our Mark,” Blecman hoped to help viewers understand how oppressed communities often cannot rely on official documentation to preserve their histories. Throughout the exhibit, she applies the concept of monumentality to highlight the different ways queer individuals used visual art and poetry to create their own legacies. 

Monumentality: The deliberate efforts of marginalized groups to remain visible and keep their perspectives alive.

“For oppressed communities, not just queer ones, [they] are made to feel small or their memory is erased in the larger public sphere of knowledge,” said Blecman. “A lot of their memories are stuck in private, and what’s recorded in official histories doesn’t necessarily give light to these experiences, these histories, these memories.”

To counter this, queer communities create “monuments of their lives,” which can be passed down to future generations. This is seen through many of the objects on display, such as “The divas of Sheridan square,” a collection of poems published in the 1970s centered on the queer community in New York. 

“I chose [to include] it because I think it not only has some very beautiful visuals, but a lot of the poems demonstrate what it means to become monumental and why oppressed communities seek to do so,” said Blecman. “The zine is frank about the difficult realities LGBTQ+ people live with, but nevertheless carries with it a spirit of hope and a call to never give up.”

“Making Our Mark” celebrates these monuments and how members of the LGBTQ+ community actively create their own representation in the public sphere. For Blecman, the exhibit is a way to remind viewers of how marginal communities throughout history have continued to resist and control their legacies.   

Blecman also wanted the exhibit to be truly representative of the LGBTQ+ community. 

“I wanted it to be as intersectional as possible,” said Blecman. “I wanted to provide hope and a sense of personal empowerment to people through art and poetry.”

Visit the exhibit 

“Making Our Mark: Queer Visual Art and Culture in the Modern Era” is on display in the lobby of Shields Library until August 1, 2025. 

Complete the exhibit scavenger hunt and bring your completed brochure to the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room to receive a magnet or a sticker as your prize!

For those interested in learning more, many of Blecman’s thoughts on monumentality came from the book Queerly Remembered: Rhetorics for Representing the LGBTQ Past by Thomas Dunn, which is free to read online from the library.