This exhibition traces the affective history of Satrang and its relationship to broader queer diasporic South Asian worldmaking. Satrang (seven colors), formerly named TrikoneLA, has been the primary queer South Asian community organization in Southern California since 1997. Its founding was catalyzed by Trikone (triangle), a magazine that began in 1986 in the Bay Area and circulated throughout North America, Europe, and South Asia. While Satrang originated as a group of individuals getting together to share potluck meals, it has grown to become an organization that marches in Pride Parades, engages in outreach, and hosts special events for families and youth.

Documenting queer sociability is a challenge. José Esteban Muñoz has proposed that it exists “in fleeting moments, in innuendo, in gossip and in performance.” Although any such project will be incomplete, this exhibition honors his notion of the “performative as an intellectual and discursive occasion for a queer worldmaking project.” Through magazines, pamphlets, photographs, and oral histories, it presents key moments in the organization's development, including its early evolution, important social and community gatherings, marches, and workshops.

While gesturing to the past, the exhibition also looks to the future, asking how Satrang may continue to evolve. This presentation explores: how can an LGBTQ community organization hold intergenerational memory? How does it simultaneously celebrate collective joy and also give space to grief? And how does it respond to the needs of a diverse and complex community, creating a safe space for all?

This digital exhibition grew out of Archival Intimacies: Queering South/East Asian Diasporas, a multi-site project in Los Angeles curated by Aziz Sohail and Alexis Bard Johnson in 2022. It included works by Los Angeles-based artists Vinhay Keo and Prima Jalichandra-Sakuntabhai as well as various public programs. This project is supported by the ONE Archives at the USC Libraries, USC Visions & Voices: The Arts and Humanities Initiative, USC Pacific Asia Museum, South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), and Satrang.

The research and interviews for this exhibition took place in 2021 and the first half of 2022. Thus, this project marks a specific moment in time. In the last year, we have witnessed further assaults on the rights of queer and trans individuals and women. The work that needs to be done to continue to build queer community in these urgent and precarious times is ongoing. Every effort has been taken to ensure permission has been granted for each object on view. However, we recognize that these permissions can also change over time and based on circumstances. Please email info@saada.org with any permissions or removal requests.