Celebrating Black Queer Icons:

Tourmaline

Tourmaline (formerly known/credited as Reian Gossett)is a trans woman that actively identifies as queer, and is best known for her work in trans activism and economic justice. Tourmaline was born July 20, 1983, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Tourmaline's mother was a feminist and union organizer, her father a self defense instructor and anti-imprisonment advocate. Growing up in this atmosphere allowed Tourmaline to explore her identity and encouraged her to fight in what she believes in. Tourmaline has earned a BA in Comparative Ethnic Studies, from Colombia University. During her time at Colombia U, Tourmaline taught creative writing courses to inmates at Riker's Island Correctional Institute, through a school program known as Island Academy. Tourmaline has worked with many groups and organizations in her pursuit of justice. She served as the Membership Coordinator for Queers For Economic Justice, Director of Membership at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and as a Featured Speaker for GLAAD. Tourmaline also works as a historian and archivist for drag queens and trans people associated with the 1969 Stonewall Inn Uprising. She started doing this after noticing how little trans material was being archived, saying that what little did get archived was done so accidentally. In 2010 Tourmaline began her work in film by gathering oral histories from queer New Yorkers for Kagendo Murungi's Taking Freedom Home. In 2016 Tourmaline directed her first film The Personal Things, which featured trans elder Miss Major Griffin-Gracy. For the film Tourmaline was awarded the 2017 Queer Art Prize. Tourmaline served as the Assistant Director to Dee Rees on the Golden Globe nominated historical drama, Mudbound. Tourmaline has co produced two projects with fellow filmmaker and activist Sasha Wortzel. The first was STAR People Are Beautiful, about the work of Sylvia Rivera and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. The second was Happy Birthday, Marsha, about Marsha P Johnson. Happy Birthday, Marsha had all trans roles played by trans actors. Tourmaline's work is featured or archived in several major museums and galleries. In 2017 her work was featured in New Museum's exhibit Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon. In 2020 the Museum of Modern Art acquired Tourmaline's 2019 film Salacia, a project about Mary Jones. In 2021 the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired two of Tourmaline's works for display in Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room. Tourmaline is also the sibling of:

Che Gossett

Che Gossett is a nonbinary, trans femme writer and archivist. Gossett specializes in queer/trans studies, aesthetic theory, abolitionist thought and black study. Gossett received a Doctorate in Women's and Gender Studies, from Rutgers University, in 2021. They have also received a BA in African American Studies from Morehouse college, a MAT in Social Studios from Brown University, and a MA in History from the University of Pennsylvania. Gossett has held a fellowship at Yale, and currently holds fellowships at Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge. Gossett's writing has been published in a number of anthologies and they have lectured and performed at several museums and galleries of note, including the Museum of Modern Art and A.I.R. Gallery. Gossett is currently working on finishing a political biography of queer Japanese-American AIDS activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya.

I originally intended to do separate profiles for Che Gossett Tourmaline, but could not find sufficient information about Che Gossett, beyond their credentials and current academic activity. That means that this will be the last of these write ups for a bit. I plan on picking it back up in October for the US's LGBT History Month and UK's Black History month. With time to plan ahead and research more I hope to diversify my list geographically and improve formatting. I plan on starting to include cis icons as well, like Rustin Bayard. If you come across this or any other of these posts Ive made this month I would love feedback and suggestions for figures you would like to see covered.

This is your last week to check out video art by Liz Johnson Artur, Arthur Jafa, Steffani Jemison, Ahmed Mater, Marilyn Minter, Wangechi Mutu, Rashaad Newsome, Ebony G. Patterson, Sable Elyse Smith, Tourmaline, Nari Ward with Zachary Fabri, and Sasha Wortzel, before Art on the Stoop: Sunset Screenings shifts to its second program! 

This first program, running through October 11, explores themes of power and uncertainty, distance and loss, and history’s hand in our present times, and the three videos featured here ruminate on how space and place impact lives and history. 

In This is an Address I, Sasha Wortzel explores the precarity of unhoused LGBTQ+ people living on Manhattan’s Gansevoort Penninsula in 1995, and more recent construction on the pier.  

Sable Elyse Smith’s How We Tell Stories to Children, is a tender narrative of connection despite enforced distance, incorporating found footage, audio of the artist reading, and videos recorded by her father while incarcerated. 

Finally, Ahmed Mater’s Leaves Fall in All Seasons combines video footage of construction, destruction, and labor rights protests shot by workers across a decade of rapid development in the Islamic holy city Mecca. 

Check out the schedule on our website to make plans to experience these highlights of our video art collection!   

Sasha Wortzel (born Fort Myers, Florida, 1983) This is an Address I, 2019 [Still]. Single-channel video (color, sound): 17 min., 12 sec. Brooklyn Museum; Gift of the artist with support from the Mary Smith Dorward Fund 2019.40a ⇨ Sable Elyse Smith (born Los Angeles, California, 1986) How We Tell Stories to Children, 2015 [Still]. Single-channel video (color, sound): 5 min., 51 sec. Brooklyn Museum; Gift of Isaac Joseph 2019.37 ⇨ Ahmed Mater (born Abha, Saudi Arabia, 1979). Leaves Fall in All Seasons, 2013 [Still]. Single-channel video (color, sound): 19 min., 57 sec. Brooklyn Museum; Purchased with funds given by an anonymous donor. 2018.56.5

happy birthday, marsha! (2018) directed and written by tourmaline and sasha wortzel 

(available here for a very limited time)

Sasha Wortzel (American). Still from We Have Always Been on Fire, 2018.  Part of Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: Art 50 Years After Stonewall at the Brooklyn Museum. 

We Have Always Been on Fire is a collaboration between filmmaker Sasha Wortzel and musician and performer Morgan Bassichis. In this music video, Bassichis sings a track off of More Protest Songs! (2018) from within the dunes of Cherry Grove on Fire Island, New York. Bassichis describes the album, whose title can be understood as both an imperative (Listen to more protest songs!) and an eye roll (Not another protest song!), as “falling somewhere between adult lullabies and practical spells.” Simple chords and lyrical repetition offer up an incantation to the ghosts of Cherry Grove, a decades-long site of sanctuary for queer communities.

As Bassichis intones that “We have always been on fire / We have always been let down / We have always been an island,” Wortzel echoes this refrain visually, interweaving seaside imagery she captured in recent years on Fire Island with found footage by documentarian Nelson Sullivan from July 4, 1976, before the onset of HIV/AIDS. We Have Always Been on Fire culminates with Bassichis serenading the viewer from within the halo of a disco ball, evoking an intergenerational sense of loss and disappointment in the ongoing struggle for queer liberation.

Films in 2018 #130 Happy Birthday, Marsha!, 2017. Directed by Reina Gossett & Sasha Wortzel

★★★★★★★ - - -

Here are seven of this past month’s selections in our ongoing Black History Month and Women’s History Month series on films helmed by black women directors:

🌟 A Dry White Season (Euzhan Palcy, 1989): Made at the height of the anti-apartheid movement, Palcy's furious and urgent political thriller remains a textbook case of directorial risk-taking. At its heart is the truth that change can only be brought about if we first open our eyes. 🌟 Eve’s Bayou (Kasi Lemmons, 1997): Lemmons’s masterful talent is evident in every luscious composition, swoon-worthy color, pitch-perfect performance, and bracing narrative turn as a Louisiana girl gains clarity on the world around her — and those entrusted to protect her from it. 🌟 Finding Christa (Camille Billops, 1991): In 1981, visual artist Billops reconnected with Christa, the daughter she gave up for adoption 20 years before. A decade after reuniting, Billops composed this rueful, docu-fictional examination of the difficult choices that define a life. 🌟 Free Angela and All Political Prisoners (Shola Lynch, 2012): Angela Davis put her intellect into revolutionary practice and brought her fight for freedom to the masses. Here, the scholar and prison abolitionist recounts a pivotal chapter, her courage and convictions undiminished. 🌟 Gideon’s Army (Dawn Porter, 2013): Porter is one of our most empathic nonfiction storytellers. Her debut movingly captures the warrior spirit of three indefatigable public defenders in Georgia as they weather heartbreaking losses and narrow victories, dejected but not yet broken. 🌟 Happy Birthday, Marsha! (Tourmaline, 2018): Tourmaline and co-director Sasha Wortzel commemorate history by treating it as a felt experience. As played by Mya Taylor and captured by Arthur Jafa, Marsha P. Johnson is again a living, breathing being resisting to a song all her own. 🌟 Hidden Memories (Jacqueline Frazier, 1977): Frazier evocatively experiments with sound, editing, image, and POV in this gutsy and unusual memory piece. As her protagonist recalls an unwanted teenage pregnancy, Frazier passes no judgment, honoring the sanctity of a woman’s choice.

Written by Matthew Eng

over a week later + I’m still thinking about Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon at the @newmuseum | this piece from the show is Lost in the Music by Reina Gossett + Sasha Wortzel ✨

Oh my. Oh Mya Taylor!!! Oh long-awaited QPOC community cultural artistry feat!!! After premiering at Outfest Fusion in Los Angeles earlier this month, Reina Gossett and Sasha Wortzel's "Happy Birthday Marsha!" will make its European premiere at the British Film Institute London LGBTQ+ Film Festival on March 22, 23, and 24, 2018. Much MORE!

Queer and Trans of Color Production

<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/145921994" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="https://vimeo.com/145921994">Official Trailer for Happy Birthday, Marsha!</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/sashawortzel">sasha wortzel</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

The documentary was produced and created by David France, a white gay man, who made the documentary at the same time as Tourmaline, a black trans woman who was also making a documentary about Johnson. France was able to get the film done more quickly because of his greater resources, potentially took some of Tourmaline’s research and could not speak for the black trans community as well as a black trans woman could.  

In order to succeed in media, having more access to money, equipment and networking connections is necessary. For people who are a part of marginalized groups, it is more difficult to have access to these resources and to obtain funding than it is for people who are already better off. Tourmaline struggled to get her project off the ground and relied on crowdfunding, versus France, who received the funding he needed and was able to relatively quickly produce a film. “Until all of our ideas and lives are celebrated and given the resources we need and deserve, so much of our brilliance will remain hidden out of fear of our lives and labor being violated and appropriated.” (Tourmaline, 2017). 

Marsha P Johnson’s story was repeatedly pushed under the rug by historians, as were the lives of many other black trans women. It was important to share her story, particularly through the voice of another trans black woman to avoid continued erasure of the black trans narrative in mainstream media. “I realized that Marsha’s life had been deemed unimportant and unworthy of documenting by historians who have never cared about the lives of black trans and gender nonconforming people. Historical erasure of black trans life means so many of us are disconnected from the legacies of trans women before us, denied access to stories about ourselves, in our own voices.” (Tourmaline, 2017). 

Both of these articles illustrate that queer and trans of color productions are not given the same opportunities as those that are not queer and/or trans of color production. For example, we see the mainstream desire for representation “satisfied” by the inclusion of queer and trans people of color into the media, but produced by people who are not a part of the community. “Murphy’s interest in casting queer and trans actors of color can be read as merely satisfying demands for inclusion without actually challenging the larger structural and systemic labor issues.” (Martin, 2018)

Sasha Wortzel’s film This is an Address I explores the history of a small peninsula in the Hudson River located at the end of Gansevoort Street in Manhattan. The area functioned as an epicenter for gay male life through the 1970s, and subsequently became home for a community of homeless LGBTQ+ people, many of whom were HIV-positive. Juxtaposing 1990s footage and more recent documentation of the site, Wortzel considers conditions of material scarcity, gentrification, and marginalization within LGBTQ+ communities. In This is an Address II, Wortzel turns her attention to sites throughout New York’s Meatpacking District that were once vital spaces for LGBTQ+ people to socialize, cruise, organize, and be in community with one another. The meditative and poetic tone of the films creates an elegy for these spaces lost to gentrification and the ongoing AIDS epidemic, among other causes.

Now in its final weeks, see works by Wortzel and 27 other LGBTQ+ artists in Nobody Promised You Tomorrow before it closes on December 8. 

Posted Yiran Chi Sasha Wortzel (Fort Myers, Florida, born 1983). This is an Address I, 2019. Video, color, sound; 17 min. 12 sec. Courtesy of the artist. This is an Address II, 2019. Video, color, sound; 9 min

Monday Motivation | Hiring? Add a Salary Range

Kick off your week with Monday Motivation!

Tip of the week

Based on a LinkedIn Study, job seekers first look for the compensation package and then qualifications after a job title has caught their eye. Therefore, a critical piece of information is missing for job seekers when the salary range is not included. They use the salary range and qualifications to assess if they are right for the job before ever applying. Including a salary range will help attract more of the right candidates.

This week’s highlighted jobs:

Creative Forces Community Engagement Metrics and Evaluation Manager Americans for the Arts Washington, DC

Studio Manager, Technology and Applied Composition San Francisco Conservatory of Music San Francisco, CA

Lead Metal Fabricator Pacific Studio Tucson, AZ

Mana Fine Arts Art Handler and Driver Mana Fine Arts Jersey City, NJ

Director of Curatorial Affairs Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center Oklahoma City, OK

This week’s highlighted opportunities:

Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. Seeks Winter Public Art Installation Downtown Grand Rapids Inc. Grand Rapids, MI

Open Call: Public Art Billboard Series + Exhibition SaveArtSpace + The Untitled Space + Art4Equality New York, NY

I Like Your Work Fall Open Call Juried By Pennylane Shen I Like Your Work Columbus, OH

New Fellowship Opportunities in Caribbean Art and Critical Race Theory Clark Art Institute Williamstown, MA

- Mary-kate Grohoski, Sales Manager

Find more jobs and opportunities on NYFA Classifieds.

This post is part of a regular blog series, NYFA Creative Careers. Let us know what careers you’d like to learn more about by visiting us on Twitter: @nyfacurrent and using the hashtag #NYFAClassifieds.

Image: Sasha Wortzel (Fellow in Video/Film ’18), Happy Birthday, Marsha, 2017, HD Video

AVAILABLE ONLINE STARTING 5PM TONIGHT! LINK IN @hbdmarsha BIO It’s been over 50 years since the Stonewall Uprising, yet the leading role that street queens, trans women of color and gender non-conforming people played during the riots has received little recognition. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MARSHA! seeks to change that. Written, directed and produced by people living Marsha P. Johnson’s legacy through their own work, this film marks the first time trans women of color are on both sides of the camera. Filmmakers Tourmaline and Sasha Wortzel have chosen to donate proceeds to GLITS Inc. (Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgendered Society) which seeks to promote and improve protected rights, wellness, and inclusion of transgender people in our society. Watch to support their vital work and to help share the message. Learn more about G.L.I.T.S. Inc.: https://www.glitsinc.org/donation - #regrann Reposted from @hbdmarsha https://www.instagram.com/p/CBWjH2ogNmW/?igshid=1wl5ovixs7yql

A scene from Sasha Wortzel’s “We Have Always Been on Fire,” on view at “Nobody Promised You Tomorrow: 50 Years After Stonewall,” on view at the Brooklyn Museum until Dec. 8 https://www.instagram.com/p/B5YIDQOJMDDIDYumCZ90ni3HLg2TDrMt7ev50c0/?igshid=18ls8eb5cm205

Do Not Watch “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”

This is a document from the producers of “Happy Birthday, Martha!” on the controversy of the film. David France did, indeed, steal the idea of the documentary from Reina Gossett and Sasha Wortzel. While historic events are technically ‘public’ to write about, France took actual elements and footage off Gossett’s vimeo without her permission. Not only that, he believed that as a filmmaker, he had a right to make this, saying he was ‘the right person’. Jaime Grant, who is the Executive Director of the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, confirms this: 

“ I told David about Reina and Sasha's project and urged him to support it since they had been working on it for years.  In my mind, in terms of the social justice leadership aspect of the work -- Reina's life experience and activism closely mirrored Sylvia and Marsha's lives and work and hers was a project where trans women of color were telling their own stories.  David responded by saying that the 'right person should make it' -- meaning him.”

They go on to talk about the methods that France used to try and get more material out of them:

“Shortly after receiving a rejection from Arcus, an employee working for France phoned Sasha at work asking for her contacts related to Marsha. She did not share them. When Sasha inquired as to who this person was and what this information was needed for, the employee responded that David France was in the early stages of exploring a possible documentary film about Sylvia and Marsha. Sasha informed the employee that our nearly identical project was already well underway, and explained we would like to be put in touch with France. In that phone call, we stated that it would be great if France would consider supporting us rather than making his own documentary film on the same topic. Again France had an opportunity to support our film, and he chose not to.”

David France had copies of Gossett’s videos down on actual hard drives, but didn’t seek permission to use any of it. Reina even saw France at one of her talks when she showed new footage while talking about the process:

“As someone ‘who knows the archives better than anyone else here’ by David’s own admission, Reina’s account confirms many suspicions that had come up for me whilst going through the archival footage and research. Reina’s entire Vimeo was on the hard drives, down to the exact resolution and clip length and her name appeared throughout other materials. Based on what I have seen, undoubtedly someone at some point made heavy usage of her work and research, and to say this didn’t happen is a bold-faced lie which flies in the face of all available evidence.”

In November 2015 France attended a presentation we gave on our work at the Cooper Union as part of the exhibition “Bring Your Own Body.” We publicly shared several excerpts from our film in progress for the very first time. This presentation included unveiling the archival we had acquired from Wilson. Reina also read a personal letter she had received from Kitty Ratolo who was one of the last people to see Marsha alive.

Following our presentation, France reached out and filmed Ratolo for his own film and sought out the archival footage we had shared from Wilson. It appears in his own film. Clearly France has seen and learned from our work.

These quotes are taken from their personal statement here. Do us trans people a favor and don’t praise France’s copy-cat shit movie, but go see Happy Birthday, Marsha! that will premiere in 2018.

The Marsha p Johnson doc was stolen from a trans WOC (reina gossett)

Yeah, I started seeing articles about that yesterday (there were probably ones earlier but I didn’t hear about it). I think it was a while ago that I posted about the doc (or maybe you’re responding to something I queued and forgot about?), but thanks for bringing it up so I can give ppl more info now.

 http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/10/08/trans-filmmaker-says-netflix-debuted-marsha-p-johnson-documentary-stole-her-work/ :

...Gossett alleges that France had seen a grant application which she wrote for a video about Johnson. She says he decided to make the documentary himself and then deleted the application from public records.

Writing on Instagram, Gossett said: “This week, while I’m borrowing money to pay rent, David France is releasing his multimillion dollar Netflix deal on Marsha P. Johnson.”

Going on she says: “David got inspired to make this film from a grant application video that @sashawortzel and I made and sent to Kalamazoo/Arcus Foundation social justice center while he was visiting. He told the people who worked there — I sh/*t you not — that he should be the one to do this film, got a grant from Sundance/Arcus using my language and research about STAR, got Vimeo to remove my video of Sylvia’s critical ‘y’all better quiet down’ speech, ripped off decades of my archival research that I experienced so much violence to get, had his staff call Sasha up at work to get our contacts, then hired my and Sasha’s ADVISOR to our Marsha film Kimberly Reed to be his producer.”

Continuing: “This kind of extraction/excavation of black life, disabled life, poor life, trans life is so old and so deeply connected to the violence Marsha had to deal with throughout her life.”

Trans broadcaster and activist Janet Mock also defended Gossett on Instagram.

She wrote: “This brilliant black trans girl went about researching, archiving, and digitizing content that was previously inaccessible for decades,” she wrote. “She interviewed Marsha and Sylvia’s peers. She did this work without pay.” ...

France responded to the allegations, releasing a statement saying: “I learned of [“Happy Birthday, Marsha,” Gossett’s film] well into our work and reached out, worried we were duplicating efforts. We were not, as OUT has noted.”

He added: “Marsha’s and Sylvia’s inspiring stories have been told before and must be told again with many voices, especially by trans women who have an even harder time raising funds than we did. That’s why we fully support Reina and Sasha’s beautiful film. [...] I stole nothing, and paid all artist collaborators. Reina thinks her work is in my film, but when she sees it she will know.” ...

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/10/netflix-director-david-france-accused-stealing-reina-gossett-research-1201884876/ :

...Gossett, a black, trans woman who currently serves as activist-in-residence at the Barnard College Center for Research on Women’s Social Justice Institute, wrote, directed, and produced with Wortzel “Happy Birthday, Marsha!” a fictional short film about gay liberation pioneer and drag queen Johnson, who some credit for the shattered shot glass that launched New York City’s Stonewall riots. ... 

Shortly after Gossett published her statement, France refuted its claims, also on Twitter. On Oct. 8, he released an official statement. France wrote that he began investigating Johnson when she was found dead in 1992 at age 46, after she’d been missing for six days. At the time, France was covering LGBTQ issues for The Village Voice. But the case had no active leads, and the AIDS crisis was unfolding. Two decades later, France began looking into Johnson’s death once again, carrying out his “own scholarship,” which included sourcing, digitizing and licensing archival footage with help from the Anti Violence Project, and interviewing those who knew Johnson and Riviera.

“Reina Gossett has suggested that I’ve stolen both the concept and footage for ‘The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson’ from her work, the experimental short narrative, ‘Happy Birthday, Marsha!,'” he wrote. “Nothing in the film’s concept, research or execution came from anyone outside of this process.” Still, he considers himself indebted “to those who have kept Marsha’s story alive over the years. My creative work builds on theirs.”

In addition, when he learned of “Happy Birthday, Marsha!,” he believed the two endeavors “seemed different enough,” as one is a fictional short while the other is a documentary feature. ...France wrote that he is so encouraging of Gossett’s homage to Johnson that he introduced she and her collaborators to his “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson” financier. “It is wrong that our projects have not received equal attention.” ...

More information on Johnson, the documentary, and the controversy available at these links:

https://www.out.com/out-exclusives/2017/8/24/power-people-exploring-marsha-p-johnsons-queer-liberation

https://www.out.com/movies/2017/6/06/netflix-acquires-new-documentary-about-marsha-p-johnsons-life-death

https://www.out.com/popnography/2017/10/08/trans-filmmaker-claims-david-france-stole-research-netflix-marsha-p-johnson-documentary