Talk | LGBTQ+ Activism in Chicago: Past, Present & Future
March 07, 20262:00 pm - 4:00 pm
About the Event
Join us for a community dialogue about LGBTQ+ Activism in Chicago: Past, Present & Future in partnership with The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project. Held in connection with City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago, this gathering fosters storytelling, reflection, and exchange across generations to cultivate community, connection, and imagination for Chicago’s collective future.
Access Information
CART captioning is provided at this event. To request additional accessibility services, please contact us at [email protected] or 312-397-4076.
About the Storytellers
Phyllis Johnson, 75, is a lifelong resident of Chicago. A retired professor, she taught at Columbia College for 27 years. She is a cofounder of Women of All Colors and Cultures Together (WACT), a community enhancing brunch group for queer women. In 2024, WACT was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. Retirement has allowed her to become more active in her communities. She is a former participant and current facilitator of the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project. She serves on the Board of Directors for Affinity Community Services, and the OutAging Advisory Committee of Pride Action Tank, AIDS Foundation. She also serves on the West Chesterfield Community Association, the community in Chicago that has always been Black.
Ankit Khadgi, 27, is a Chicago-based writer, organizer, and curator. He currently serves as a board member of Trikone Chicago, where he helps organize events and build community for South Asian queer people across the city. In 2024, he was named one of Windy City Times’ Top 30 Under 30 LGBTQ+ leaders in Chicago. Ankit is also the curator of People Who Came Before Us, an archival project documenting the history of Chicago’s South Asian LGBTQ+ community.
Ryan Patrick Krueger, 33, is a Chicago-based artist who works with photography to explore queer history, activism, and collective memory. Drawing from archives and lived experience, their practice centers intergenerational storytelling and the ways images carry resistance across time. Their work has been exhibited nationally, including the Everson Museum of Art, Rivalry Projects, and the 2022 FotoFest Biennial in Houston, TX. Krueger’s work has appeared in ARTnews, Art in America, and Aperture.
Lizzie Maricich, 71, is a lifelong Southside Chicago resident. She’s an accomplished artist, writer, and storyteller. For as long as she can remember, two truths have been woven deeply into her life. The first is that she always knew she was an artist. The second is that she always knew she was a girl—even though she wasn’t identified as one at birth. Despite the hostility directed at transgender people in this country, Lizzie has never felt more real or empowered. No deranged political movement will ever take that away from her.
About the Collaborator
The LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project brings together racially, socioeconomically, and gender diverse cohorts of LGBTQ+ younger and older adults (60+) from the greater Chicago area for a year-long series of biweekly themed dialogues, collaborative art-making, and shared meals. Founded in 2019, the project is a hybrid community/education/research partnership between LGBTQ+ faculty members at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Illinois Chicago, and University of Chicago and the Pride in Aging Program at Center on Halsted (the Midwest’s largest LGBTQ+ Community Center). To date, more than 160 people have participated.
Funding
Event
Community programming for City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago is supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Lead support for the 2025–26 season of MCA Talks is made possible by The Richard and Mary L. Gray Lecture Series through a generous gift to the Chicago Contemporary Campaign.
Generous support is provided by The Antje B. and John J. Jelinek Endowed Lecture and Symposium on Contemporary Art; the Kristina Barr Lectures, which were established through a generous gift by The Barr Fund to the Chicago Contemporary Campaign; The Gloria Brackstone Solow and Eugene A. Solow, MD, Memorial Lecture Series; and the Allen M. Turner Tribute Fund, honoring his past leadership as Chair of the Board of Trustees.
Exhibition
Lead support for City in a Garden: Queer Art and Activism in Chicago is provided by the Harris Family Foundation in memory of Bette and Neison Harris, the Zell Family Foundation, Cari and Michael Sacks, and R. H. Defares.
Major support is provided by Laura and Tony Davis, Linden Capital Partners; Robin Loewenberg Tebbe and Mark Tebbe; and Charlotte R. Cramer Wagner and Herbert S. Wagner III of Wagner Foundation.
Generous support is provided by Dr. Daniel S. Berger and Scott Wenthe; Katherine Mackenzie and Murat Ahmed; and Gary Metzner and Scott Johnson.
This exhibition is supported by the MCA’s Women Artists Initiative, a philanthropic commitment to further equity across gender lines and promote the work and ideas of women artists.
