Art walk promotes awareness and celebrates transgender community

By BRITTNY MEJIA Published November 20, 2012 at 3:12am Updated November 20, 2012 at 3:12am

A Trans Art Walk held Monday night exposed attendees to transgender artists and sought to promote awareness regarding the transgender community.

The walk kicked off with a poetry reading at Wingspan, followed by a walk to Casa Libre, Studio One and Fluxx Studio and Gallery to view artwork that was either created by transgender artists or depicted an aspect of transgender identities.

Some of those in attendance said the walk and the artwork acted as a celebration of the transgender community.

“All of it is designed to be artwork by trans folks in the community,” said Rae Strozzo, program coordinator for the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance and one of the artists showing his work.
“Some of it’s about those issues, some of it’s not,” Strozzo added. “This is part of the celebration aspect of Transgender Awareness Week.”

At each location, artists either spoke about their experiences, or attendees could read about the artist’s struggle or direction with their artwork in a statement within the gallery.

“I feel everyone has a different opinion about what the main benefits are, but I feel one of the main benefits of having an event like this is getting the trans experience out in the open,” said Zami Tinashe Hyemingway, a youth programs coordinator, who presented a poem he wrote.

Ryan Dolan, a history junior, and Eric Ptak, a psychology senior, came to write about the walk for their class, History of Modern Sexualities. Their assignment was to write what they learned and apply it to course readings.

“You learn about society, you learn about people,” Ptak said. “There’s always positives.”
The Trans Art Walk is one of the events during the Transgender Awareness Week, which ends today.

Strozzo said the purpose is for the transgender community and the LGBT community to come together and celebrate who they are and have things that are informative for them.

“We also hope with Trans Awareness Week to reach out to folks who don’t know a lot about our community, and have it be a space where people can get information and see the center,” Strozzo said.

“Also, this is to sort of break stereotypes around what trans identities might be, or just to give information if they don’t know.”