SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The OUT Museum, a first-of-its-kind institution dedicated to Chinese queer art, opened in late May in San Francisco’s Chinatown, giving Chinese LGBTQ+ artists a rare public platform for their work.
The museum opened with a rainbow-ribbon cutting between Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Pride Month, according to the Associated Press. Situated across from the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum, the bilingual museum aims to give recognition to a demographic that its founders say has long felt invisible.
Xiangqi Chen, an activist and artist who fled China, is the driving force behind the museum. Chen told the Associated Press through an interpreter that the irony of leaving her home country and finding a public platform for LGBTQ+ artistic expression in the nation’s oldest Chinatown is not lost on her.
“Here in San Francisco Chinatown, I still continued my journey and met so many like-minded community members and friends,” Chen said. “It kind of actually encouraged me and gave me lots of strength to do what I know is my mission, my calling.”
In China, Chen said she can be punished for her LGBTQ+ activism.
The museum currently occupies one room and operates only on Saturdays, displaying fewer than a dozen artworks by artists from China and the Chinese diaspora. Organizers said they hope to expand the museum’s exhibits and days of operation.
The opening comes at a politically fraught moment for LGBTQ+ rights. According to the AP, some cities, states, and the federal government are restricting or banning certain LGBTQ+ rights — a dynamic that makes the museum’s presence in the progressive city of San Francisco a contrast to broader national trends.