Dates 

June 11 - July 3, 2026

exhibiting Artist

Scarlett DeLorme, Justin Jain,

& Amy Cousins

Exhibiting location

William Way LGBTQ Community Center

For LGBT Americans, 1976 was a time of both great progress and continued injustices. Pennsylvania governor Milton Shapp’s executive order outlawing discrimination against gay and lesbian employees in the state executive branch and his establishment of an advisory Council for Sexual Minorities in 1976, were firsts of their kind in the US. But in the same year, the United States Supreme Court, in a summary affirmation, upheld Virginia’s right to ban sex between consenting gay men. Anita Bryant’s famous anti-gay discrimination campaign in Florida and other right-wing attacks on our community were not long to follow. In Philadelphia, several LGBTQ+ organizations were founded in 1976, including the Gay Democratic Caucus (the first gay political organization in the city), the Philadelphia Gay News, and the Gay Community Center of Philadelphia (today’s William Way LGBT Community Center). They joined a plethora of existing organizations which had formed in the early 1970s to secure equal rights for our community. Materials from 1976, including evidence of LGBT Philadelphians participating in Bicentennial or counter-Bicentennial events, are available for research in the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives at William Way LGBT Community Center.

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This Is (Not) a Celebration: Queer Resistance 1976/2026

This Is (Not) a Celebration: Queer Resistance 1976/2026 brings together new work by Philadelphia-based artists Scarlett DeLorme and Justin Jain, organized by the William Way LGBT Community Center. Each artist was invited to create work in dialogue with materials from the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives—the most extensive collection documenting the history of Philadelphia’s LGBTQ community. Within this broader civic reflection of the 250th of the United States, This Is (Not) a Celebration shifts the focus from commemoration to resistance. Presented in active dialogue with archival materials, Scarlett DeLorme's wet plate photography and Justin Jain's ceramics insists that 1976 was not a moment of patriotic consensus, but one of queer defiance. As the United States marks 250 years, This Is Not a Celebration reframes the anniversary as a moment of protest, solidarity, and survival—asserting that queer resistance is not peripheral to American history, but foundational to it, and ongoing.

more on the exhibition
delorme portrait

About the artist

Scarlett DeLorme

A wet-plate collodion photographer working at the intersection of disability and queerness, uses Victorian-era photographic processes to create contemporary portraits of Philadelphia-based LGBTQ+ activists and organizers. By placing emerging leaders alongside those who began their activism in 1976, DeLorme visually traces lines of continuity across generations, asserting that queer resistance is both inherited and evolving.

Artist website

arleen olshan

Portrait of Arleen Olshan

tin type photography

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Research Location

Winterthur Museum, Gardens, and Library

Today’s creativity can be inspired by objects from the past. Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library is a historic mansion featuring one of the most significant collections of American decorative arts in the world. These objects and our library collections help us broadly understand the artistic, cultural, social, and intellectual history of the Americas and everyday Americans in a global context from the 17th to the 20th centuries. As part of the Radical Americana initiative, Winterthur offers an experience to inform or inspire your own creative process, to provide respite and an opportunity to observe the natural world, and to encourage historical research that enhances the contemporary meaning of current work.

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Artist Information

Justin Jain

Justin Jain is an Actor, Director, Educator, and Wilma HotHouse Company member, previously appearing in Kiss, The Cherry Orchard, Minor Character, and Heroes of the Fourth Turning among many others at The Wilma. When not onstage, he’s making new work with his Barrymore nominated alt-comedy theatre company, The Berserker Residents (www.berserkerresidents.com), teaches Theatre at his alma mater, or creates moving visual arts as a ceramicist.

Artist website

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Rising Freedom 1

feature in The Clay Studio's Welcome Hub

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Research Location

William Way LGBTQIA+ Community Center

Mission: We seek to engage and support the diverse LGBTQIA+ communities in the greater Philadelphia area through arts & culture, empowerment, and community connections.

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amy cousins headshot

Artist Information

Amy Cousins

is an artist living and working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA). Her approach to color is bold and intuitive and her approach to printmaking is roundabout. Amy’s research-based and large-scale work is created with screenprinting and risograph printing. She also creates soft sculpture and paper-maché works. Currently, Amy is working on an installation based on the plants she’s grown in her small city garden, and how these connect to herself as well as ideas of queer ecology and queer land projects of the past.

Artist website

amy cousins housing for the lesbian feminist declaration of 1976 detail

featured work

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Research Location

William Way LGBTQIA+ Community Center

Mission: We seek to engage and support the diverse LGBTQIA+ communities in the greater Philadelphia area through arts & culture, empowerment, and community connections.

Learn more
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Full Project

Radical Americana

For the Semiquincentennial, The Clay Studio is leading Radical Americana, a series of exhibitions organized by a consortium of Philadelphia’s arts and cultural institutions. Each celebrates how artists today are continuing the city’s robust legacy as a center for art, skill, and civic engagement. The 45 artists researched and were inspired by the art and history of Philadelphia in 1776, and the subsequent commemorations in 1876, 1926, and 1976. The artists' new work will add their voices to current dialogue about our nation’s present and future, inspire civil dialogue, celebrate Philadelphia's diversity, and continue the rich tradition of creativity in our city.

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