{"id":196651,"date":"2026-02-27T16:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/196651\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T16:25:09","slug":"ybcas-conjuring-power-grounds-hope-for-lgbtq-future-in-shared-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/196651\/","title":{"rendered":"YBCA’s ‘Conjuring Power’ grounds hope for LGBTQ+ future in shared history"},"content":{"rendered":"

As director of the Castro LGBTQ cultural district, Tina V. Aguirre is well-versed in the queer and trans world-building that has taken place in the iconic neighborhood. That being said, \u201cI want to make it clear, this also happened in SoMa, the Tenderloin, and the Polk. There have been queers in all of San Francisco, going back to the Gold Rush,\u201d they clarify. Along with co-curator Caro De Robertis, Aguirre brings that city-wide perspective and a powerful message of resistance, resilience, joy, and hope to Conjuring Power: Roots & Futures of Queer & Trans Movements <\/a>(March 13-August 23 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts). <\/p>\n

The exhibition centers on local intergenerational queer and trans artistic leadership, and was developed in collaboration with the\u00a0GLBT Historical Society. Its broad sweep includes works by Ester Hern\u00e1ndez, Serge Gay Jr., Crystal Mason, Tanya Wischerath; along with artifacts, archival films, inventive new prints based on historic protest art; and excerpts from 20 oral histories drawn from De Robertis\u2019 work with the acclaimed Elders Project. Notably, Conjuring Power shines a special light on artwork from the next generation of local LGBTQ+ creatives.<\/p>\n

\"\"Sofi\u0301a Fabio Mendieta, \u201cMy Life is a Prayer\u201d. Queer Ancestors Project, 2024\u20132025. Courtesy of Katie Gilmartin, QAP Archives. <\/p>\n

In a shared interview with 48hills, its two curators speak about the exhibit\u2019s cultural, social, and political importance, plus the essentiality of LGBTQ+ arts ancestry. They emphasize the exhibition\u2019s upcoming special events that amplify the resilience and pageantry found in queer and trans communities across the region and around the world.<\/p>\n

Aguirre conjures archival photos of 1950s Castro residents showing people of color, people in drag, large gay parties, and more. In the 1970, a proliferation of new gay bars signaled an openness to queer small business owners and their clientele.<\/p>\n

\u201cRents were low even before the Castro became an enclave for queer people,\u201d Aguirre says. \u201cIt was a working-class neighborhood with mainly Irish American families. It went through an economic downturn and lower rents meant it became cheaper to open small businesses. There was a welcoming to queers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the exhibit, these foundational underpinnings show up most directly in collages developed by Serge Gay Jr. employing ephemera from the GLBT Historical Society. \u201c[Gay\u2019s collages] highlight early groups that built the community, not just in the Castro, but also in other areas where lesbians, queer and bi women, Latinos, trans, and other people celebrated queerness in all its multitudes,\u201d says Aguirre.<\/p>\n

The show includes a wealth of world-building from its multiple generations of creatives. \u201cThey draw from ancestral history learned from teaching artists and focus on retelling history,\u201d says Aguirre. \u201cThey interpret history and create new art. It provides an artistic treatment to the moment we are experiencing now. Caro and I want people to realize we\u2019re not in isolation, not alone. We cans look toward a better future of what we can be and should be: fabulous, wondrous and loving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTina and I shared a vision of how roots and futures are not separate entities in queer identity and culture,\u201d says De Robertis, an award-winning author and a professor at San Francisco State University. \u201cWe envision what\u2019s possible for our futures because we know we have a rich inheritance from the past. Often, queer and trans culture is not understood to be intergenerational. I\u2019m a queer person raising children, but I didn\u2019t grow up with that in my home. We have to find and create that in spaces like the museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sponsored link<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"Crystal Mason, \u201cInvocation For A Dream\u201d (2026). Video still <\/p>\n

In the show, oral history clips allow visitors to hear real-life stories at interactive audio stations offering the voices of 20 queer and trans elders of color. \u201cThey speak to the idea that the freedoms we have today, the freedom to be all we are and to engage in authentic queerness, is because people came before us to blaze those trails. Many are still alive and still making culture,\u201d says de Robertis. Original artwork by Tanya Mischerath accompanies the audio clips and displays paper-cut portraits of each elder.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned that YBCA needs this in the same way queer people and their allies need this,\u201d says Aguirre. \u201cThey had a regime change in their leadership. There were issues around artistic censorship, I learned they are wiling to learn from what I consider a past mistake. It shows in how they turned up and actually embraced our approach, which is queer in terms of aesthetics, politics, culture, and queerness in all its variations.\u201d<\/p>\n

To support not just YBCA\u2019s growth, but that of children who will attend the exhibit on field trips, they developed a linked K-12 curriculum. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re sharing with everybody that queer families and fabulosity exists. There\u2019s still a disconnection between generations, different factions, and community groups. This exhibit is a means to engender hope, highlight resilience, and (establish) that queer joy is resistance. Love and joy has to be a part of everything we do that moves us forward as humans, especially for queer and trans folks,\u201d says Aguirre.<\/p>\n

De Robertis grounds her hope in history. \u201cIt has always been the work of queer 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

CONJURING POWER: ROOTS & FUTURE OF QUEER & TRANS MOVEMENTS runs March 1-August 23. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF. More info here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As director of the Castro LGBTQ cultural district, Tina V. Aguirre is well-versed in the queer and trans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-196651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-san-francisco","9":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","10":"tag-san-francisco-news","11":"tag-sf","12":"tag-sf-headlines","13":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}