Queer Ancestors Project

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QAP forges sturdy relationships between LGBTQI people & our ancestors. Thank You for your interest, love and support.

The Q***r Ancestors Project is devoted to forging sturdy relationships between LGBTQI people and our ancestors. Using history as a linchpin, we build community by providing young Q***r adults (age 18 to 26) and (occasionally) senior adults (50+) free interdisciplinary workshops in printmaking, writing, and Q***r history. Public exhibitions and readings of their work provide a window on the past through which the larger community can glimpse our collective future. The LGBTQI community has a limited visual record, or none at all, of significant Q***r events before the 1970s, particularly in the histories of Q***rs of Color and Gender Q***rs. This lack of imagery makes it harder for LGBTQ people to connect with, learn from, and be inspired by our history. Just as photographs from your early life help to anchor personal memories, a visual record – even an imagined one – can bring historical events to life, creating the kind of indelible connection that enables us to engage deeply with our ancestors and for our supportive and loving "straight" family and friends to learn and grow with us as well.

09/14/2026

The “Conjuring Power: Roots & Futures of Q***r & Trans Movements” exhibit at YBCA has officially concluded after 5 months! We are so honored to have had over a dozen QAP alumni and their prints featured at this show. 🎉

It was so wonderful to be able to see multiple generations of q***r and trans artists express themes of ancestry, resistance, and hope throughout their art — especially in the current political moment we are in.

As beautifully said by the exhibit curators Tina V. Aguirre and Caro De Robertis, and quoted in a 48Hillls article about the exhibit — “We’re sharing with everybody that q***r families and fabulosity exists. There’s still a disconnection between generations, different factions, and community groups. This exhibit is a means to engender hope, highlight resilience, and (establish) that q***r joy is resistance. Love and joy has to be a part of everything we do that moves us forward as humans, especially for q***r and trans folks,” says Aguirre.

De Robertis grounds their hope in history. “It has always been the work of q***r people to work against erasure. These things are still true and urgent, but also not new. The good news is that we have a long lineage from which to draw.”

A special shout out to the fabulous curators, Tina V. Aguirre and Caro De Robertis, as well as all the staff at YBCA, especially Christa Cesario and O Soo Vegh, and other collaborating artists especially Tanya Wischerath, Serge Gay, Fabio Sofia Mendieta, and Arina Sarwari-Stadnyk.

08/14/2026

The highlight video for Under Pressure 2026 is now out!! 🎉

Here are some cute moments from the video. We had so much fun celebrating the QAP Resists artists with y’all! Until next summer~ 🌞😎

See the full-length video on our Youtube! Link in bio.

08/07/2026

alexandra, “Wuttookummissin Peukkomukquem (Grammy’s House),” linocut

My grandma’s house has always been one of my favorite places. The woman in this print is the same woman in a tapestry that has hung in my grandma’s home since before I was born. It was gifted to her by a friend who visited Ghana and witnessed the artist create the tapestry live. I always grew up wondering the name and story of the woman in the tapestry, and since the original scene in the tapestry is plain, I decided to create a new world for her through this print.

My paternal family is Black and Nipmuc. We are Indigenous to central Massachusetts, land we call Nipnet, meaning fresh water place. Both my grandma and grandpa are Black and Nipmuc. In the 19th century, it was common for many African-descended people who migrated from the South to the North, following their emancipation from enslavement by european settlers, to make kin within Native American communities, and eventually become tribal members through marriage and familial relations. The origins of Afro-Indigenous communities in the u.s. represent histories of resilience, resistance, and survivance. This print imagines the African woman from my grandma’s tapestry in Nipnet territory, had she lived the same migration my ancestors experienced years ago.

alexandra

08/05/2026

amal (hope), “Right Are Not Regained Without Resistance”, linocut

Resistance is an ongoing daily practice in Palestine. My homeland has been occupied for over 75 years and every day we resist the occupation here and abroad to get closer to liberation. The colonizer wants us to give up. They want us to get tired but, we must persist. Generations of Palestinians have been fighting for their land, their rights, their freedom, for over 75 years and have not given up. Neither should you, reading this from the belly of the beast. Resistance is necessary. How else will Palestine be free?

08/03/2026

Erynn Lynn Ruiz, “They Were Dreaming Of Us.”, linocut

They Were Dreaming of Us

I know that for certain.

curious on what love can mean and who can feel it.

what is the warmth of the sun and if their children will play together again tomorrow.

Secrets whispered in the dead of night,

Lovers hands clasped underneath dining room tables,

Eating what’s left of their identity.

Sheets disheveled and letters from a mistress that are well received,

Leaving it to her daughter and her daughters daughter to discover.

They were dreaming of us,

I know that for certain.

LP

07/31/2026

Jess Shen, “FREE,” linocut

This is the ASL sign for “free.” I wanted to make a print that was about both prison abolition and the barriers incarcerated people with disabilities face. As part of my current job, I’ve met with many incarcerated people who are not getting the disability accommodations they need, including people who are deaf and hard of hearing. Not having the accommodations you need in prison can affect your ability to get meals and medications on time, make you feel isolated or vulnerable to attacks, and even affect your ability to complete programming that can help you parole.

This print was inspired by my friend and colleague, Tremmel Watson, who became deaf while he was incarcerated and is now a disability rights advocate. When I was sketching my idea for the print, I consulted Tremmel, who suggested the phrase “No bars, no barriers” and helped make sure my drawing of this sign was correct. Tremmel has taught me so much, including some ASL, and although I still have a lot left to learn, I’ve realized how fun and meaningful it can be to learn even just a few words. I hope this print inspires you to try learning some ASL, too!

Jess

07/24/2026

Oacchoné Pierrot, “Mystic of Pendjari”, linocut

In 2019/2020, while doing research for my undergraduate thesis, I has the honor of visiting the country of Benin, West Africa. The visit was meant to be a homegoing, an adventure that would reconnect me to the soil and traditions of my lineage. I did in fact leave West Africa with a sense of reconnection, firstly to myself, and secondly to the place my family is truly from, the historically Black town of Allensworth, California.

The prints ‘Mystic of Pendjari” and “A Hut in Songhai” are carved memories of my trip to Benin.

“Mystic of Pendjari”

During my trip to Benin, I had the chance to visit Pendjari National Park, a vast wildlife preserve which expands through Northern Benin and Southern Burkina Faso. While visiting, I had a moment of connection with the depicted Western African Bubalé Kanki or ‘Hartebeest’. Many Beninese and broader West African theological practices honor the Bubalé Kanki or ‘Hartebeest’ as a mediator or guide between the human and spiritual realms.
Within the vast landscape of the Pendjari National Park, there sits an ancient ceremonial site, a ‘forbidden place’ that modern humans are no longer allowed to visit. I was told by close Beninese friends that there are many reports of people venturing into this forbidden area and completely vanishing.
Exploring the idea of spirituality which transcends dimensional restriction, I felt it was fitting to depict this Bubalé Kanki as a ‘tour guide’, connecting us to deeper ancient rhythms and traversing metaphysical landscapes that remain forbidden. The Bubalé Kanki communicates many things to its viewer, looking back as an invitation and an acknowledgment.

earthkidart

07/20/2026

Sierra, “Wildflowers”, linocut

I made this piece after the murder of Juniper Blessing, a 19-year-old trans woman who was an atmospheric science and meteorology student at the University of Washington. Juniper was an accomplished choir singer, a lover of Pokémon, and deeply kind soul who “only wished the best for everyone in her life”, according to her friends. On May 10, 2026, she was stabbed 40 times by a stranger in the laundry room of her apartment building.

In the United States, thirteen trans people were murdered in the months of April and May alone. Every time this happens, every time a law is passed that undermines our right to exist, every time the New York Times publishes a brilliant and nuanced meditation on whether we should be allowed to exist, we feel a collective terror that most people will never know. We are reminded that we’re in the crosshairs of a campaign of extermination, headed by some of the most powerful people in the world. It makes me want to hide. It makes me want to go back to the shallow and confusing life I had before I had to worry about this. It makes me wonder what I’m even after.

This time was different. She was nineteen. We are born so late and die so young. Attacks on our right to transition steal time from one end, and violence steals time from the other. We are given a fraction of a lifetime to live in. But in the few years that Juniper got to live as herself, she lived more than some people do in seventy. For a few years, she got to be exactly who she wanted to be. And even though she was killed for it, she chose not to do the killing herself by deferring the life she wanted.

I know that by choosing to transition, I am choosing a life that I will need to fiercely defend. However, it’s the only life I find worth living and worth defending in the first place. Transitioning makes people want to kill me, but it also makes me want to live. The unfairness of it all is not lost on me — deadly violence is not the price of joy for most people — but talking about the unfairness won’t take away the choices we have to make.

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934 Brannan Street
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http://queerancestorsproject.org/

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