A New Military Archive

The Among Dreams LGBTQI Military Archive (ADMA) shares bold stories that illuminate the bravery and activism distinct of LGBTQI who risk their lives in service of a nation that has- past and present- upheld laws against their own personal freedoms.

This archive catalogues first person narratives and dreams of inter-generational LGBTQI active duty members and veterans, marking invisible moments in our U.S., LGBTQI, and Military history.

From targeted witchhunts and assaults to soldiers serving in silence, these stories individually and collectively trace the distribution of weight held on the shoulders of soldiers and the residual impact on their lives today.  An archive of fear and hiding, while equally one of determination, bravery and unwavering patriotism, ADMA maps a direct line between these lives lived and the increasing freedoms for lesbian and gays in the military today.

Histories & Dreams

A new, bold archive- mapping the invisible

Nighttime dreams offer a rare and visceral look at memory, filling and informing gaps in the conscious mind, helping us to trace history by asking: What does the body remember?  What is the residual/ internalized impact of a history of silencing, hiding, and violence?  Dreams offer a deeper look into the psyche, and can be traced and mapped along with our waking life stories to offer a complex, vivid culminating image of the LGBTQI who have served our country.

Chelsea lives and works in both Manhattan and San Francisco.

Artist/ Producer

Chelsea Rae Klein is an artist, activist, community worker and unofficial dreamworker. She has been harvesting her own dreams for 15 years and holds firm but mysical belief in the notion that tracking ones waking life history and sleeptime dreams in tandem has great potential to reveal awesome insight about ourselves, others and the world around us. In 2012 she produced and co-curated a group exhibition about waking life and dream integration in San Francisco titled “We Dream in the Daytime Too.” Soon thereafter, Chelsea lead a dreamcircle with incarcerated men in a San Francisco County Jail and produced artworks illustrating these men’s dreams and narratives which resulted in a published collaboration between artist and inmates.

Born in Spokane, Washington, Chelsea Rae Klein holds a Masters in Arts Politics from NYU, Tisch School of the Arts and a BA in Journalism with an emphasis on Photojournalism from San Francisco State University. Most recently Klein’s work has appeared in New York at Aperture Gallery and The Cristin Tierney Gallery and in Florida at The Art Place Wynwood during Art Basel Miami. Her projects have received award from The San Francisco Arts Commission’s 2013 Individual Artist Commission and The Zellerbach Family Foundation’s Community Arts Grant. She is also the founder and director of Descry Arts Projects, a pop-up exhibition and publishing space that has supported the publication and exhibition of over 200 national and international non-conformist emerging artists, which in 2012 produced group exhibitions in both San Francisco and Manhattan. Her work has appeared in articles by the Huffington Post, Hyperallergic and in 2011, she was profiled as one of San Francisco Weekly’s Top 100 artists.

Support

This project is made possible by the generous support of

The San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Grants Individual Artist Commission

ARCHIVE

Recent Stories