Chris Vargas and MOTHA at the New Museum in NYC

black and white collage of trans-hirstory supporters with the MOTHA logo at top left

“MOTHA and Chris E. Vargas: Consciousness Razing—The Stonewall Re-Memorialization Project” will be the exhibition and residency at the New Museum in New York City presented through the Department of Education and Public Engagement’s Fall 2018 R&D Season: Generation.

With wry humor and incisive critique, Chris E. Vargas parodies mainstream social and institutional codes to reimagine how queer and trans experiences are represented. Vargas is the founder of the Museum of Transgender Hirstory & Art (MOTHA), a semi-fictional, transient institution that serves as a platform for exhibiting trans history and cultural production. His project takes up the contested legacy of the word history: Vargas notes that “for millennia, the patriarchy has had versions of history; for a few years in the 1970s, some white feminists had herstory; but it hasn’t been until now that transgender people have finally had a gender-neutral hirstory all their own.” Continue reading.

Image: Chris E. Vargas, Transgender Hiroes, 2013. MOTHA promotional broadside, offset print on newsprint, 28 × 33 in (71 × 83.8 cm). Courtesy the artist.

Authored on

Oct 17, 2019 5:23am