Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings
Tifkas, 2015
HD drawing printed on duratrans film in lightbox
133 x 192 x 16 cm
Tifkas is the name of a bar in Buffalo, upstate New York, in Leslie Feinberg’s now out-of-print book Stone Butch Blues (1993). The semi-autobiographical novel is about life as a butch lesbian living in early 1970s America during the American Civil Rights Movement and the Stonewall Riots. The character first visits their local gay bar at sixteen, finding solace in a community and starting their queer education.
This lightbox is part of a wider investigation by Quinlan and Hastings into the symbols and spaces of gay identity. It shows their drawing of a landscape with majestic mountains in the distance. Scattered along the side of the road are a discarded flyer and an empty beer can, which are references to the novel’s narrative.