Queer Power: A Time Traveling Coloring Book signing at Leslie Lohman Block Party Saturday August 28

Chitra Ganesh is thrilled to announce the release of her self-published Queer Power! A Time Traveling Coloring Book this week, which celebrates the queer and transgender histories of downtown Manhattan and the neighborhoods adjacent to the Leslie Lohman Museum. The 152 page black and white coloring book, for kids and adults alike, evolved from a conversation with Gonzalo Casals, Commissioner of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, into a 10-panel facade installation at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, titled A city will share her secrets if you know how to ask.

The Queer Power Coloring Book expands and explores the utopic imaginary presented in the Leslie Lohman Museum installation, and includes over 100 drawings as well as essays by Riya Lerner, Erica Cardwell and Jeannine Tang. This work extends the artist’s ongoing commitment to femininity and social formations that are overlooked and excluded from mainstream discourses around queerness and race. By highlighting vibrant queer communities of color, from Black to Indigenous to Asian & South Asian, A city will share her secrets if you know how to ask celebrates these communities that have been not only influential to the artist personally but influential to our communal struggle for justice and equity. The piece additionally grounds this history in our present moment, including images of those trans and gender-nonconforming people who have been violently murdered in the United States this year, historic queer and trans activists, and community members we have lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Select copies of the $25 book, and the $100 Limited Edition signed and illustrated copies, are available here and at select locations including The Whitney Store, Greenlight Books, Printed Matter and The Brooklyn Museum. There will also be a live coloring event and book signing at the Leslie Lohman Museum Block Party this Saturday August 28 from 3-7pm.

Book design by Preston Thompson, Publication Management by Daniel Sharp, published by KOPA.

Spread from the Queer Power Coloring Book featuring illustrations of Scottlyn Kelly Devore, Brayla Stone & Angel Unique