Bill Stamets, Joan Jett Blakk Announces Candidacy for President [excerpts], video, 25min, 1992
Gay and Homeless in the West Village [excerpts], Tom Iorio, 25min, 1995

In 1992, Joan Jett Blakk, an African American drag queen, ran for President of the United States under the slogan "Lick Bush in '92." This archival footage from the Media Burn Independent Video Archive features Joan Jett Blakk in a bar in Chicago, announcing candidacy on a platform that represents the dissatisfaction and frustration of marginalized communities who do not normally have a voice or a place in mainstream politics. In archival footage from the Gay Center's Archive, Silvia Rivera takes gay activists, Randy Wicker and Tom Iorio on a tour of her home, a gay homeless camp in the West Village in 1995. This powerful and upsetting footage illustrates how members of our queer can fall through the cracks without any established support.

The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA) is a space that fosters conversation around community voices and power outside of the mainstream. It allows for one to reflect on the past and simultaneously imagine new possibilities for the future.

Curator: Carmel Curtis