Chinese Queer Museum

Queer artist-activist Xiangqi Chen created "OUT/出 MUSEUM," a Chinese queer museum prototype with the dream of realizing an institution that will collect, safeguard, and showcase China's queer movement, art, and stories. For a growing queer Chinese diasporic community, "OUT | 出" means to come out and be proud, while also alluding to the complicated realities of "getting out" of somewhere– whether driven by fear or by hope.

For more than 20 years, Chen has played a pivotal role in shaping the narrative and progress of the LGBTQI+ movement in China. In 2005, Chen established Shanghai's first grassroots organization devoted to lesbian women in Shanghai. In 2012, Chen orchestrated the “I can be slutty, but you cannot harass me” (我可以騷，你不能擾). art intervention against sexual harassment in the subway, sparking the first national dialogue on sexual harassment in China. During 2018-2019, Chen directed a first-of-its-kind documentary film "Shanghai Queer," offering a comprehensive portrayal of Shanghai’s LGBTQI+ movement for the past 15 years. This will be the first time for Chen to imagine her journey through a “museum” format, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the first American gay couple’s marriage in San Francisco. Chen is continuing to develop the Chinese Queer Museum.