This event takes place on Crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. This event is free, but registration is required. Register here.

Charis and Sinister Wisdom welcome JEB in conversation with Alexis Pauline Gumbs for a discussion of Making a Way: Lesbians Out Front, a collection of more than a hundred emotionally resonant photographs that take readers from passionate activism to thoughtful solitude.

JEB (Joan E. Biren) first introduced viewers to her photographs in 1979 when she published Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians, a groundbreaking celebration of women loving women. In the years that followed, JEB collaborated with poets, musicians, filmmakers, elected officials, healthcare providers, factory workers, spiritual leaders, and others who built communities and worked for political change. Her second book Making a Way: Lesbians Out Front, published in 1987, depicts the spirit and energy of this movement in more than a hundred emotionally resonant photographs that take us from passionate activism to thoughtful solitude, while remarks and remembrances from each woman photographed deepen the historic record. This reissue of Making a Way adds insightful new essays by Cheryl Clarke and JD Samson, resulting in an essential document of an era whose impact continues to be felt across our society today.

JEB (Joan E. Biren) is an internationally recognized artist and activist. She has been influential within LGBTQI+ communities and the wider public by challenging the representation of lesbians, the way that we understand photographic history, and how we speak about image-making. She began to chronicle the lives of LGBTQ+ people in 1971. JEB’s first book, Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians, originally published in 1979, was reissued in 2021. Her second book, Making a Way: Lesbians Out Front, originally published in 1987, was reissued this summer. JEB’s photographic work is represented in many collections including the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC and the J. Paul Getty Museum in California. JEB, now in her 80s, lives surrounded by chosen family and occasionally tries to retire from media making. Her plan is never to retire from social justice activism.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is the author of several works of poetry and of Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde and Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Animals, which won a Whiting Writers' Award in 2022. In 2023, she won a Windham Campbell Prize for her poetry. She lives in Durham, North Carolina.

The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Donate on Crowdcast or via our website: www.chariscircle.org/donate.

Please contact us at info@chariscircle.org or 404-524-0304 if you would like ASL interpretation at this event. If you would like to watch the event with live AI captions, you may do so by watching it in Google Chrome and enabling captions: Instructions here. If you have other accessibility needs or if you are someone who has skills in making digital events more accessible please don't hesitate to reach out to info@chariscircle.org.

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Making a Way: Lesbians Out Front -- JEB in Conversation with Alexis Pauline Gumbs