To the Editor:

I am writing to let you know about an exciting gallery exhibition and community building project scheduled for January-February 2025, though components of the project may begin earlier and remain on display longer. 

Entitled Make Visible: North Country, the project is being organized by Shannon Novak, artist, curator, activist, and director of the Safe Space Alliance, a non-profit organization that aims to help people identify, navigate, and create safe spaces for LGBTQI2S+ communities worldwide. Our Make Visible: North Country project will also dovetail with Shannon’s statewide Make Visible: New York project.  

Both projects aims to grow support for LGBTQI2S+ communities by making visible their challenges and triumphs. The North Country chapter manifests as work developed with local LGBTQI2S+ communities across multiple sites and is supported by the Richard F. Brush Art Gallery at St. Lawrence University. 

Based on other iterations of Make Visible projects around the world, ours will rely heavily on community engagement from people of all stripes and ages. Some of the programming will be designed by Shannon, and some can be generated by people from the region. Shannon has done a community letter writing project, for example, in which “people can write an open response/letter to the prompt ‘Dear North Country.’ The instruction is ‘What would you like people to know about what it's like being LGBTQI2S+ in North Country?’ It's like an open letter to the ‘North Country’ from local LGBTQI+ people. Visitors can write, draw, whatever they like on little cards which are then strung up for people to read.” Such a letter writing project can also be done online to engage our rural neighbors across the region. 

Shannon also designs beautiful rainbow window installations in public buildings, and we are hoping to find one or more organizations to work with on custom pride window installations. For examples, click on “Works” at www.shannonnovak.com/. 

If you would like to get involved and/or join a working group, please feel free to contact me at ctedford@stlawu.edu or 315 229-5174. For more, visithttp://www.shannonnovak.com/make-visible-north-country and http://www.shannonnovak.com/make-visible-new-york. 

Catherine Tedford, Director
Richard F. Brush Art Gallery
at St. Lawrence University