Take Back the Fight: Resisting Sexual Violence from the Ground Up
Exhibition Dates: June 1 – October 29, 2017
Exhibition Opening: June 1, 7-10pm

Recovery from trauma after sexual assault is often imagined as a personal, internal experience. However, an exclusive focus on individual narratives of victimization and healing can obscure decades of collective, grassroots struggle by and on behalf of sexual assault survivors. Rape is not an isolated experience, but a pervasive form of violence that acts in concert with oppression in the workforce, at home, and in medical and academic institutions--as well as with structural racism, homophobia, transphobia, and capitalism. Likewise, organizing against sexual violence is intimately linked to struggles for liberation in both public and private spheres. The history of organizing against sexual assault and rape helps us to understand feminist resistance to violence as a collective struggle against patriarchy, and sexual and gender violence as a function of state violence.

Interference Archive’s summer 2017 exhibition Take Back the Fight: Resisting Sexual Violence from the Ground Up focuses on organized responses to gender and sexual violence, highlighting the ways individuals and communities have developed creative and powerful grassroots and non-institutional justice and healing practices. A collaboration with Lesbian Herstory Archives, Take Back the Fight narrates intersecting histories of activism by and on behalf of survivors of sexual violence and their communities.

This exhibition will situate multiple histories of resistance to sexual violence within a broader narrative of feminist, anti-racist, and queer activism. It will present strategies of resistance, both historical and contemporary, looking at the ways in which activists have sought justice outside of the courts and the criminal justice system. Ultimately, Take Back the Fight will demonstrate the crucial role of grassroots organizing in the struggle against sexual violence and the importance of this activism as a tool of both healing and resistance. Read more on our website.

Rediscovering the Radical Queer Past: a discussion of Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left
Sunday, June 4th , 5 – 6:30pm

Join Emily K. Hobson at Interference Archive for a discussion of Hobson’s book Lavender and Red: Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left! The book explores the history of LGBT and queer radical movements in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1970s and 1980s. Read more on our website.

New Podcast!: Propaganda Party Highlights

Interference Archive has been hosting a series of Propaganda Parties: events where we distribute free materials like posters and stickers, created by contemporary artists in response to current struggles. On March 5, we hosted an event called “Building Resistance.” Radio Free Gowanus, our neighborhood pirate radio station, broadcast live throughout the afternoon. In this episode, we’re sharing some of the highlights from the event, as Mike Clemow talks to our community about what it means to build resistance. Listen to it here.

This episode includes excerpts from interviews with: Womens March Action Club, Roxanne & Andrea, Raven Cras, Ola Ronke, Justin & Nicole, Amy Khoshbin, and Nora Almeida. To learn more about some of the projects mentioned in this episode, check out the Free Black Women's Library, the Center for Anti-Violence Education, or Self-Care After A Fuhk Boi.  The full interviews can be heard at www.radiofreegowanus.org.

Interference Archive at Ace Hotel Gallery: Fair Food Nation
May 4 – 31, 2017

This exhibition is located in the Gallery at Ace Hotel New York, 20 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001.

Who plants, harvests and prepares your meals? And afterwards, who does the dishes? Since 2012, fast food workers across the United States have been demanding a living wage through the Fight for $15 campaign, echoing the struggles of the United Farm Workers who, since the 60s, have led efforts to organize agricultural workers. The Black Panthers, understanding that food is an essential prerequisite for liberation, started the Free Breakfast for School Children Program which presaged today's free breakfast programs at public schools across the country. Similarly, liberation movements around the world — from Angola’s Movimento Popular de Libertação to the Chiapas-based Zapatistas — have mobilized citizens to take control of their food production systems.

Fair Food Nation explores the intersection of local, national and global food issues through a presentation of archival ephemera documenting food’s integral role in the pursuit of social, racial and economic justice.