SEEN is a queer coalition of moving image makers, researchers, and curators who aim to disrupt the system of pay to show festivals and censored queer spaces. Through collaboration with other community driven and alternative art spaces, SEEN highlights self defined and nonconformist works to build a foundation for the rise of the Cinematic Gaze/Gayz. Started in Milwaukee, WI (2019) at downtown gallery with a decolonial focus We are, and have always been, a donation centered operation that focuses on self-defined, non-conformist queer work in the underground and without bars to enter. Originally with an additional Scene (as in a sequence in a film) we rebranded in 2021 as the SEEN you know today and released the following manifesto...
what does it mean to be SEEN?
??
??????
we REJECT
the standardized SYSTEM of IMAGES
the pacification of the marginalized through
the notion of REPRESENTATION as path to LIBERATION
the EXPLOITATION of makers through PAYWALLS,
REGULATIONS, and CONFORMITY
and the CENSORSHIP of QUEERNESS and SEXuality
we WELCOME the rise of the cinematic GAZE GAYZ
through SELF DEFINED spaces
we are not MONOLITHS
we are not COMPARTMENTALIZED
we are not clear cut NARRATIVES
we do not have to EXPLAIN ourselves to fit within
the LENS of cishet white supremacist patriarchal
STRUCTURES nor do we need VALIDATION
from them for the ways we choose to DEFINE ourselves
we CHALLENGE the passivity of SPECTATORSHIP
we have been taught how to VIEW but we ask you to SEE
we RECOGNIZE moving image as a new VERNACULAR
full of SYMBOLS and CODE, intonations
through many LENSES
we PROJECT the light of QUEER DISCOVERY
so that we may ABSORB the refractions of knowledge
from those before us and ILLUMINATE the path
for those to come
we are not just an EVENT
nor are we FETISHES, TOKENS, or SPECTACLES
we are a COALITION to build the foundation for
THE RISE OF THE CINEMATIC GAZE GAYZ
there is so much STRUGGLE and POWER at play in the arena of MEANING
Spaces we’ve programed:
Cactus Club | MilwaukeeThe Museum of Human Acheivement | Chicago
Stone Circle Theater | NYC
Epiphany Center for the Arts | Chicago
_underscore | Milwaukee
Genesis | Milwaukee
Blue Room | Sheboygan
Paradigm | Sheboygan
Walker’s Point Center for the Arts | Milwaukee
UWM Union Cinema | Milwaukee
Additional working relationships:
BIJOU
PinkLabel.TV
Otherness Archive
Aorta Films
Full Spectrum