A new, temporary public art installation in a Center City, Philadelphia public park honors our city’s LGBTQ+ community and centers the importance of local journalism. And I absolutely love it!

AND INTO THE STREETS is a public art project by artist Rami George and curator Jameson Paige, with support from Mural Arts Philadelphia and archival images from the William Way LGBT Community Center. Installed throughout Louis I. Kahn Park (located at 11th and Pine Streets in Philly’s Gayborhood), the project represents archival images and materials from the now defunct LGBTQ news publication, Au Courant (1982–2000).

Orginally planned to run from June 1 through August 31, the project has just been extended through October 31.

To build the exhibition, Rami threaded together these images to center underrepresented histories that depict a queer cultural memory of Philadelphia life.

“The project builds upon Rami’s significant time in the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives at the William Way LGBT Community Center, Philadelphia’s most extensive collection of historical LGBTQ materials and ephemera,” a Mural Arts press release explains. “John Anderies, Director of the Wilcox Archives, has been a guide throughout the development of this project, and the William Way LGBT Community Center has been a partner.”

“This project is incredibly important right now,” curator Jameson Paige wrote over email. “Of course for its debut during Pride month, but mostly because of how George has animated the fullness of a queer politic—both what it has been in the past and what it could become. In deciding what photographs and materials to include it quickly became clear that so many of our struggles today were fought for in the 1980s and 90s, particularly related trans and gender nonconforming people’s rights to life and bodily autonomy. There’s a frustration in feeling like we’ve moved backwards, but also hope in that there’s so much to learn from those who came before us. AND INTO THE STREETS is trying to knit those cross-generational conversations together.”

I’m so glad these moments, these histories, were documented and published in their time. One of the reasons I love this project so much is because it also demonstrates the power of local journalism. The power of having trans and queer people here in Philly tell their own stories in their own way.

Congrats to everyone involved in the project!