The first Q’llage exhibition, Coming In, received its first public showing at Public Functionary in Minneapolis, MN, in June 2023. The exhibit featured a Community Collage station, where over one hundred people created their own collages inspired by their experiences with gender, sexuality, family, and love. Beside the collages was a Reflection Space, where people wrote notes in response to the questions I asked during the Q’llage interviews (displayed on the wall).

We held multiple events during the exhibition, including an opening celebration, an Artist Talk & Participant Panel to discuss the complexities of community-engaged art, a gallery walk with local community herbalists for folks to share knowledge about the 100+ plants featured in the collages, and a workshop in collaboration with the Minnesota Environmental Justice Table called “Unleashing Our Nature.” The latter was a collage workshop to explore our relationships to nature and how our liberation is inextricable from environmental justice.

Photos below by Rik Sferra, Drew Arietta, Ryan Stopera, and myself.