“‘Older’ is a euphemism, identical to ‘elder’ and ‘senior’ and ‘golden’ — these are all phrases that soft-pedal round a phrase of denigration,” stated Arden Eversmeyer, the late founding father of the Outdated Lesbian Oral Herstory Challenge (OLOHP), in an interview that opens the documentary quick “Outdated Lesbians” (2023). “So it’s like taking again the phrase ‘lesbian,’ we take again the phrase ‘outdated.’”
The activist and retired college instructor, who died in November 2022, is on the middle of the 29-minute movie, which continues the autobiographical archival work to which she devoted the previous few many years of her life. It spotlights Eversmeyer’s “herstory” — a historical past considered from a girl’s perspective or by way of a feminist lens — and that of others preserved by way of OLOHP. She based the initiative in 1998 upon seeing a time-sensitive must protect the life tales of growing old lesbian friends battling critical medical points. Tape recorder in hand, she started the method of documenting the herstories of her area people.
Twenty-six years later, OLOHP (now an official nonprofit) has carried out round 940 interviews with roughly 900 ladies from “all walks of life,” together with a number of who’ve been reinterviewed, present board president and undertaking supervisor Margaret Purcell advised Hyperallergic. The undertaking has additionally expanded to 39 states and nations together with Japan, Australia, Canada, and Costa Rica.
The initiative facilities a rising inhabitants of LGBTQ+ neighborhood members. Within the US alone, the American Psychological Affiliation estimates that there are 2.4 million LGTBQ+ individuals age 65 and older — a quantity anticipated to rise from 12.8% of the nation’s whole inhabitants to an estimated 19% in 2030.
“We’re unabashedly single-minded: [We] discover the ladies 70 and older who determine as lesbian and are prepared to inform us their experiences in their very own phrases,” Purcell stated.
Carrying on this initiative, the “Outdated Lesbians” documentary paints a portrait of Eversmeyer and her fellow self-proclaimed outdated lesbian neighborhood by way of an assemblage of video interviews, stop-motion animated collages constructed from archival supplies, and digitized OLOHP oral tales from the Sophia Smith Assortment at Smith Faculty in Massachusetts. Divided into three acts specializing in youth, popping out and preliminary queer experiences, and retirement and activism, the movie is structured in keeping with “the best way Arden described her personal life,” the movie’s Director Meghan McDonough advised Hyperallergic.
“I discovered the Outdated Lesbian Oral Herstory Challenge by way of my analysis on-line and was stunned I had by no means heard of it — a whole lot of lesbian life tales collected throughout the nation over a quarter-century,” McDonough stated.
Many of those voices are included within the movie, which spotlights OLOHP individuals persevering with Eversmeyer’s work together with Air Drive veteran Barb Kucharczyk, activists Edie Daly and Mandy Carter, and singer and musician Gaye Adegbalola. Final month, Kucharczyk and Daly joined McDonough in a panel dialogue at a screening hosted by the American LGBTQ+ Museum at The Middle in New York Metropolis. In October, the documentary will probably be introduced in Los Angeles on the second version of the Circa: Queer Histories Pageant cultural showcase, which can characteristic 60 packages with LGBTQ+ artists, writers, activists, and neighborhood teams.
“Arden [Eversmeyer]’s work was actually about legacy, documenting these joyful, resilient life tales in all their fullness, in individuals’ personal phrases,” McDonough stated. “In her quiet means, she made a whole lot of ladies really feel that their lives had been value residing — and in documenting their herstories, she allowed future generations of lesbians and queer ladies (together with me) to see that we’ve a lot to have fun and look ahead to.”
This text, a part of a collection centered on LGBTQ+ artists and artwork actions, is supported by Swann Public sale Galleries. Swann’s upcoming sale “LGBTQ+ Artwork, Materials Tradition & Historical past,” that includes works and materials by Dinh Q. Lê, Concord Hammond, Tom of Finland, and lots of extra will happen on August 22, 2024.