This project traces the representation of queer futurity as portrayed by contemporary trans artists, performers, and activists in Cuba and Mexico. Drawing on theories of queer temporality and affect, my main objectives are to a) tease out the relation between time and queerness, b) examine the depiction of time in queer Cuban and Mexican contemporary cultural texts, such as digital storytelling, and c) trace how these depictions tantalize a queer poetics of hope from which to articulate a critical vision of the future.
By employing digital storytelling as a method and praxis for community building, these stories survey the contradictory sites which allow queer activists to exercise agency within a normative structure, creating networks of care that forgo a social binary of homo-/heterosexuality. These queer renditions of utopia propose alternative forms of establishing intimacy, fostering belonging and creating inclusive spaces for citizenship to those dictated by normative heterosexual logics of imagining the future.
Analysis
Art has always been a very important part in queer history. Queer Utopias utilizes the art of visual storytelling. Queer art could be an interesting angle to bring queer folk together and for a common goal. This makes me curious to further research methods/strategies of teaching financial literacy to those who are not white cisgender men (which tends to be unnecessarily overcomplicated). Queer people are more likely to support local queer artists and local queer events and I wonder if there could be some sort of financial education built into events like these.
