Size: 3 Items, audiovisual files (3 hrs., 27 min.), digital, mp4
Summary: An interview with Joan E. Biren conducted 2024 May 14 and 24, by Ann Cvetkovich for the Archives of American Art, at Biren's home in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Interviewee Joan E. Biren (1944-) also known as JEB, is a photographer, activist, and filmmaker who has recorded lesbian life as well as making its history visible. Born in Washington, DC, Biren shared archival research into LGBTQ+ photographic life through a traveling show in the 1970s and 80s alongside her own documentation of queer life. She now lives and works in Silver Spring, MD.
Interviewer Ann Cvetkovich (1957- ) is the Director of the Pauline Jewett Institute of Women's and Gender Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa and was previously a Professor at UT Austin; her work investigates the dynamics between affect and queerness.
This interview is part of the Archives of American Art Oral History Program, started in 1958 to document the history of the visual arts in the United States, primarily through interviews with artists, historians, dealers, critics and administrators.
English .
Funding for this interview was provided by the Alice L. Walton Foundation.
This interview is open for research. Contact Reference Services for more information.
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Quotes and excerpts must be cited as follows: Oral history interview with Joan E. Biren, 2024 May 14 and 24. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
