When The Lights Go Out: Kaucyila Brooke on the Disappearance of Lesbian Bars
by Lorelei Esquivel
For nearly thirty years, Kaucyila Brooke has excavated the lesbian bar scene across urban America and Europe. Their facades are varied—they range from discreet and confidential to unapologetic and expressive, yet their interiors are unified in serving as physical lifelines for an overlooked community to gather and thrive. Blending photography and archival research to confront the politics of cultural production and sexual representation, her work takes on an intimate psychogeographic lens tracing the ties between sexuality, sexual identity, memory, and the mutability of lesbian nightlife that allow these dimensions to exist.