Vanishing Points: Mapping Visual Histories of the LGBTQ+ Community on the South Plains

Name: Vanishing Points: Mapping Visual Histories of the LGBTQ+ Community on the South Plains
Start: 2025-09-05T06:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-09-05T21:00:00-05:00
Location: 408 Avenue J, Lubbock, TX 79401, United States

Schedule

Fri Sep 05 2025 at 06:00 am to 09:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

408 Avenue J, Lubbock, TX 79401, United States | Lubbock, TX

Studio D, School of Art, Texas Tech University at Charles Adams Studio Project will host two projects:
1.) Collecting Quantitative Data – Measuring psychological impacts of lgbtq events, advertising and graphic social media presence, and dedicated spaces like gay bars. Representatives from the Art PhD program, Graphic Design faculty, and Experimental Psychology PhD program (Budd Dees, Gilberto Corona, MacKenzie Wantje, respectively), have completed IRB training, created a survey for participants, and had the survey
approved by the IRB committee.
2.) REphotographic Project: Geo-Mapping of the “Gay Bar” Diaspora. Artist Tricia Earl will present her photographic essay study of the history of and movement away from traditional “gay bars” in Lubbock. Over a period of 50 years, in Lubbock, there has been significant presence of bars that catered to the queer community. Beginning with a back room of a steakhouse and then a warehouse during the ’60s and ’70s, to the big boom
of brick-and-mortar buildings of five-six, depending on if there was a name change, in the ’80s, then back to slim pickings of the ’90 s and 2000’s, the Lubbock bar scene was filled with queers and straights alike. Using geographic locations and the camera she is mapping the brick-and-mortar spaces, empty lots, and new businesses of the past “gay bars” in Lubbock. In the tradition of geomapping, which is the process of collecting location information to assemble a map, the photograph will act as the tool to expose the untold history of the LGBTQ+ as a community. The rise of alternative queer spaces and online communities along with economic needs of rural bar businesses, there is a decline in spaces where a sense of community is shared. This photographic essay asks
the question "what can we gain by viewing remnants of the past places and spaces of a community on the verge of being dispersed back into the closet?”
The exhibition will be open September 5, 2025 and open during the First Friday Art Trail.