SEAN FADER + MAUREEN TOWEY
QUEER AMERICAN MEMORIALS
Covered in the Whitehot Magazine article "Joy, Community, & Memory," interdisciplinary social practice artists Sean Fader and Maureen Towey are leading Queer American Memorials, a nationwide project which aims to unearth erased queer histories and reclaim queer spaces lost to hate. Inspired by the Stumbling Stones in Germany and the Stonewall riots, it is an evolution of Fader’s Insufficient Memory—an interactive Google Earth map which allows you to engage with a digital memorial to LGBTQ+ lives. In 2018, Fader began combing through historical archives to compile a database of every LGBTQ+ person who was murdered in a hate crime in the United States while the Hate Crimes Prevention Act was being debated from 1999 to 2000. The artists, in partnership with MASS Design Group’s the Public Memory and Memorials Lab, have developed physical memorials to mark these locations. They'll be working with local communities and organizations creating a constellation of memorials in U.S. cities.
UC BERKELEY LAUNCHES MULTI-YEAR
ART + CLIMATE COLLABORATION
Being unveiled in Fall 2026, Kõmij Mour Ijin / Our Life Is Here—a campus-wide exhibition and programming initiative based on the expedition organized by artists Michael Light, Kathy Jetńil-Kijiner, and David Buckland of Cape Farewell supported by the Stellar Blue Fund and Waverley Street Foundation—will bring together art, climate science, and cultural dialogue to confront climate colonialism, imagine alternative futures, and recognize our shared responsibility for planetary care. Curated by Amy Kisch of AKArt Advisory and Svea Lin Soll, the installations will engage students, faculty, and the broader public in a multi-sited exploration of how art can deepen our understanding of climate change and the actions we must take—not just as an environmental crisis, but as a complex cultural and geopolitical challenge. UC Berkeley’s scholars across disciplines will anchor the programming for the duration of the exhibition, drawing interdisciplinary connections and reflecting on how art can illuminate the entanglements of climate, history, and our collective future.