To be femme is to be alive, vulnerable, yet radical. Femme subverts the expectations of what gender and sexuality tell us is appropriate, and it expands the notion of the body towards a source of liberation and healing. The use of femme aesthetics and authenticity intentionally distinguishes femme identity from the traditions of femininity. That is, femme embodies the queer coding necessary to constitute queer and for queerness to thrive. The power that femme aesthetics governs is seen in the spaces that it creates. But for this femme and queer world-making to happen, femme must always already exist and be represented, recognized, and celebrated. 

The artwork presented in the group exhibition Femme captures full-on the idea that femme for many includes thoughts, feelings, and actions that are innate to how they navigate the world. The exhibition also presents the notion that femme connects to a web of other femmes and queer folks—and that femme is a marker of identity. We cannot, therefore, think of femme as simply and as reductively as just something that is, like donning a mask, as if we evacuated femme of all of its cultural and theoretical potential. To be femme is to be alive, vulnerable, yet radical!

Femme presents the work of Vivian Chu, Maria Liebana, Alayna Pernell, Maiwenn Raoult, Jasmine Zalaya, Sam Fresquez & Merryn Alaka.