A celebration of Queer Caribbean resilience spanning years & mediums.
In June 2021 the Caribbean Equality Project held their first iteration of "Live Pridefully: Love and Resilience Within Pandemics" —a virtual two-night event in commemoration of Pride Month and Caribbean Heritage Month, a celebration of queer Caribbean resilience through a racial justice lens, while fostering critical conversations related to pride, migration, surviving colliding pandemics, and coming out narratives. The program featured a tribute to the beloved international activist and writer Colin Robinson, intergenerational panel discussions on Caribbean LGBTQ+ visibility, gender justice, safety, and beyond, as well as migrant histories and stories driven to construct healing spaces through storytelling, embodied resilience, dialogue on accessing mental health and immigration services, educational presentations, and cultural performing arts.
Through a multidisciplinary approach, Live Pridefully produced an opportunity for activists, organizers, academics, and artists to empower vulnerable community members impacted by COVID-19, family abandonment, isolation, and living with HIV, which adds another layer of stigma, shame, and discrimination to seek support and find community. The dynamic event showcased the intersections of Caribbeaness, LGBTQ+ identities, culture, dancers, musicians, drag performers, and poets, including undocumented and HIV-affected creatives, who the global coronavirus pandemic disproportionately impacted.
From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, queer and trans immigrants of color lived in a constant state of fear and isolation—experiencing food insecurity, lack of access to equitable healthcare, anti-Asian violence, and police brutality against Black bodies. Black and Brown marginalized people have been under attack. Before we can heal and protect our vulnerable communities from senseless acts of violence and discrimination, we must name them. It's about eradicating white supremacy, racism, gender-based violence, xenophobia, and misogyny. As the pandemic continues to disproportionately impacts low-income and working-class immigrant communities, we wanted to uplift the multitude of ways that Caribbean LGBTQ+ people have persevered throughout history, even before and during the coronavirus pandemic. "Live Pridefully: Love and Resilience within Pandemics" was hosted in solidarity as we fight on for justice and collective liberation within colliding pandemics.
The event was made possible (in part) by the Queens Council on the Arts with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. This project is also made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Queens Council on the Arts.
Live Pridefully—Virtual Event
June 23, 2021: Live Pridefully Night OneJune 24, 2021: Live Pridefully Night TwoLive Pridefully—The Exhibition
As part of the Queens Museum’s Year of Uncertainty, the Caribbean Equality Project presented Live Pridefully: Love and Resilience within Pandemics as an interdisciplinary exhibition to celebrate queer and trans Caribbean resilience through a racial justice lens. Caribbean diasporic immigrant rights, gender justice, and trans rights advocates live at the intersections of outdated immigration policies, anti-black violence, racism, homophobia, transphobia, gender-based violence, xenophobia, and misogyny in the United States and throughout the Caribbean region.
Curated by Mohamed Q. Amin—Portraits of Caribbean LGBTQ+ immigrants anchored the exhibition, with oral Afro and Indo-Caribbean migrant histories and stories driven to construct healing through storytelling, embodied resilience, and intersectional dialogue on postcolonial belonging, anti-Asian hate violence, and Black trans liberation. “Queering the Moko Jumbie, 2021” The exhibition featured a 10-foot-high Moko Jumbie installation designed by Mohamed Q. Amin, Founder and Executive Director of the Caribbean Equality Project, and Charles Watts of Tropical Fete, as a reimagined Caribbean carnival symbol of queer Caribbean emancipation.
In a year of uncertainty, Live Pridefully reimagined and affirmed undocumented Black and Brown LGBTQ+ immigrants and asylum seekers as essential workers, creatives, and contributors to the cultural diversity of New York City.
Featured Participants
Rajiv Mohabir (he/him)
Professor of Poetry, author of three multilingual chapbooks, and winner of the inaugural Chapbook Prize by Ghostbird Press.
Qween Jean (she/her)
A Haitian, NYC-based costume designer and founder of Black Trans Liberation, an organization that provides employment resources for the TGNC community.
Rohan Zhou-Lee (They/Siya/祂(Tā)
A Jamaican-Chinese-Indian-Filipino dancer, writer, organizer, and founder of the Blasian March, a solidarity action for Black, Asian, and Blasian communities.
Darren J. Glenn (he/him)
A Trinidadian-born intersectional environmentalist, LGBTQ+ rights and immigration rights advocate, storyteller, and New Yorker.
Dr. Tannuja Devi Rozario (she/her)
An Indo-Guyanese organizer with South Queens Women's March and New York Birth Control Access Project, and the Associate Director of Research At Everytown for Gun Safety. She is also an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Theo Brown (he/him)
A Jamaican sexual health advocate, passionate volunteer, and advisor for organizations and programs across the greater DMV metropolitan area.
Tiffany Jade Munroe (she/her)
A Black Trans woman from Guyana who leads the CEP’s Trans Justice Unit and advocates for trans women, sex workers, and gender-expansive individuals.
Creatives and Contributors:
Curator and Director: Mohamed Q. Amin • Videographer and Visual Director: Richard Ramsundar • Photographer: Christian Thane • Ryan Persadie: Moko Jumbie History • Moko Jumbie Designers: Mohamed Q. Amin and Charles Watts • Moko Jumbie Creators: Charles Watts, Anoop H. Pandohie, Detoxx Bústi-ae, and Mohamed Q. Amin • Make Artist: The King Ivy • Production Assistant: Detoxx Bústi-ae
About the Year of Uncertainty (YoU):
In 2021, the Queens Museum embarked on a Year of Uncertainty (YoU), a framework for strengthening connections among the Museum, communities, and constituents, focused on creating new possibilities for culture, kinship, and mutual support. Centered around themes of care, repair, play, justice, and the future, this program responded to hyperlocal and international states of precarity that were heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic, including the crises of inaction and unaccountability toward racial justice and xenophobia, climate reparations, and income disparity.
The Caribbean Equality Project was one of nine community partners from across the borough of Queens included in the YoU cohort of advocacy community-based organizations. The exhibitions of the nine community partners tackled issues such as gender-justice, mental health, environmental justice, youth enrichment, gun violence prevention and intervention, LGBTQ+ activism, and civil rights for transgender and gender non-binary (TGNB) people and sex workers.
The Year of Uncertainty artist residencies and community partnerships were made possible by generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Lambent Foundation, and the Jerome Foundation.
Live Pridefully—Photoville
From June 4, 2022—June 26, 2022, The Caribbean Equality Project partnered with Queens Museum and Photoville 2022 on the outdoor photography exhibition Live Pridefully: Love and Resilience within Pandemics, on view in Brooklyn Bridge Park. The interdisciplinary exhibition was originally presented at the Queens Museum as part of the Year of Uncertainty and was transformed into an outdoor photography exhibition shown as part of Photoville’s 11th Annual Festival.
Photography: Christian Thane
Visual Director: Richard Ramsundar
Live Pridefully 2021
Live Pridefully 2023From May 1, 2023—June 30, 2023 The Caribbean Equality Project partnered with Queens Museum and Photoville 2023 to bring the outdoor photography exhibition, Live Pridefully: Love and Resilience within Pandemics, to Phil “Scooter” Rizzuto Park in Richmond Hill, Queens. The exhibition was the first Photoville installation in Richmond Hill, home to largely Indo-Caribbean and South-Asian immigrant communities where Caribbean Equality Project is based.
Photoville is a New York-based non-profit organization that works to promote a wider understanding and increased access to the art of photography for all. Founded in 2011 in Brooklyn, NY, Photoville was built on the principles of addressing cultural equity and inclusion, which we are always striving for, by ensuring that the artists we exhibit are diverse in gender, class, and race. In pursuit of its mission, Photoville produces an annual, city-wide open air photography festival in New York City, a wide range of free educational community initiatives, and a nationwide program of public art exhibitions. By activating public spaces, amplifying visual storytellers, and creating unique and highly innovative exhibition and programming environments, we join the cause of nurturing a new lens of representation. Through creative partnerships with festivals, city agencies, and other nonprofit organizations, Photoville offers visual storytellers, educators, and students financial support, mentorship, and promotional & production resources, on a range of exhibition opportunities.
