Queer Ancestors Project

a. “Ace of Hearts”
b. “Night Shift”
c. “I am your family”

Prints created in the Queer Ancestors Project Prints! workshop.

Night Shift: This print is an homage to the press operators, film strippers, and typesetters who demanded a place in commercial printing, and combined their work with militant labor unionism and a commitment to anti-imperialist struggles. These include Ruth Ellis, a Black lesbian who opened a printshop and informal community space out of her Detroit home in 1937; the working-class butches depicted in Leslie Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues; Diana Press, the Oakland lesbian-feminist press vandalized in 1977 along with thousands of copies of Rita Mae Brown's book in production; and the collective and worker-owned print shops of the Bay Area. Depicted is an offset press of the kind often used to print political posters and flyers like the ones shown. These represent multiple generations of radical printers' concerns. In many shops, workers ran these presses off-the-clock to produce political literature.