NYC Trans Oral History Project to Launch Residency at the Park Ave Armory

NYC Trans Oral History Project (NYC TOHP), a community archive devoted to the collection, preservation and sharing of trans histories, will perform in residency at the Park Avenue Armory. During the two week residency, the archive will host an incredible array of LGBTQ+ artists, scholars, dancers and oral historians to share their work, converse and activate the archive's collection of over 200 trans New Yorkers' stories.

Programs will take place in Company I, launching first with a discussion group hosted by The Center Archive and OutHistory's First Tuesday Queer History Meetup (October 3, 6-8pm) and led by the iconic scholar Jonathan Ned Katz, who has published five books on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender U.S. history. On the evening of October 3, t-boy picnic will present ”Transmasculine Futures”, a conversation bringing together those who identify with transmasculinity (6-8 pm), and on Oct 4th, TransEquity will present an evening of performances, Born with Red Ink: stefa marin alarcon and Cecilia Gentili, as well as a screening of Born with an Extra Rib (6-8pm).

During the second week of NYC TOHP's residency, Jewish Currents will host “How to Build a Radical Archive: Oral history and the people who make it,” convening Black and Jewish oral historians for a conversation on diasporic archival work, moderated by Ari Brostoff (October 11, 6-7:30pm). Queer|Art and the NYC TOHP revive the Flashback Series with an intergenerational conversation between Fran Tirado and Connie Fleming on Oct 12, 6-7:30. Finally, two separate experimental dances entitled “Exult and open: dance figure” by Reed Rushes & Kate Williams, and Josie Bettman will be performed on October 13, 6-7:30pm. All events are free of charge, please RSVP here to attend: https://linktr.ee/nyctransoralhistoryproject.

Additional on-site activations include a film screening room curated by Xiomara Sebastián Castro Niculescu, entitled “Corpus Immundus: Notes from the Underside,” which is “a love letter, an audiovisual ode to trannies, travestis, hookers, and street queens - to those threateningly opaque and sensuous figures lurking in the shadows of trans history,' too filthy for its sanitizing embrace.” T4Tapes, a DIY Brooklyn-based collective that creates cassette compilations by and for trans people, will curate a sound room. These media rooms will be open for visitation during Corpus Delecti, a symposium on October 14 featuring a series of panel discussions with Kate Bornstein, Cassils, Eli Erlick, Cecilia Gentilli, Griffin Hansbury, Murray Hill, Tiamat Legion Medusa, Sandy Stone, Jeanne Vaccaro and others. 

More information can about this event can be found here: https://www.armoryonpark.org/programs_events/detail/corpus_delicti

Lastly, a sound installation will be on view from October 10-14th created by Aviva Silverman, entitled, “Angelic Hosts''. The piece is a manifestation of the digital collection of the NYC Trans Oral History Project in which the artist has suspended 36 auditory excerpts from 36 narrators - stories bridging time and space, reaching towards Olam ha Ba (Hebrew for “The World that is Coming,” understood to be a world of harmony, peace and justice.) Visitors are invited to hold these illuminated orbs, each containing a unique story, connecting the listener to the legacy illuminated through the collection. 

This residency is presented in conjunction with MUTANT;DESTRUDO, the Armory's new commission by the multifaceted artist and creator Arca that continues her practice of addressing themes of psychosexuality, science fiction, and gender identity.

About NYC Trans Oral History Project 

The New York City Trans Oral History Project is a community archive devoted to the collection, preservation and sharing of trans histories, organized in collaboration with the New York Public Library. Our archive documents transgender resistance and resilience in New York City. We work to confront the erasure of trans lives and to record diverse histories of gender as intersecting with race and racism, poverty, dis/ability, aging, housing migration, sexism, and the AIDS crisis. We privilege the insights of vulnerable trans communities fighting the structural dismantling of public benefits, housing insecurity and homelessness, policing, and surveillance. We are a volunteer organization, founded in 2014 through deep conversation with community organizations. We are grateful to a broad network of peer to peer interviewers, and many others who have donated their time and experience to build the archive. Over the years our project has flourished from the support and participation of many volunteers and core organizers. Our project has been supported by partnerships with Queer|Art, the New York Public Library, and the Digital Transgender Archive and by funding from the Trans Justice Funding Project.

To support the NYC Trans Oral History Project, follow them at @nyctransoralhistoryproject or hit DONATE on their site: www.nyctransoralhistoryproject.org