Providence-based artists Jason Tranchida and Matthew Lawrence discuss their multi-year historical project Scandalous Conduct | Newport 1919, examining a US Navy-sanctioned raid on homosexual activity in Newport, RI. At the end of World War I, this event now obscured by history, sparked a national scandal when sailors and civilian men alike were targeted in a covert operation against “immoral acts”. The artist duo discuss their research and efforts to bring to life a multimedia production featuring, “An Episcopal minister. 41 naval recruits. A zealous newspaper editor. A pandemic. A drag show. A beanstalk. The YMCA. And a future president of the US.”

Jason Tranchida and Matthew Lawrence are an artist duo based in Providence. Together they curate Headmaster, a queer print journal featuring original art and writing projects. Separately, Tranchida and Lawrence work in design, creative direction, writing, and archives, skills which inform their practice as a duo. They have also produced live events in museums and gay bars. Together they are currently working on Scandalous Conduct / Newport 1919, a multi-year video installation and series of public programs about a homophobic military entrapment scheme that took place in Rhode Island shortly after the end of World War I. Awarded the Community Development Grant by the Brown Arts Initiative (BAI), the grant supported the development of an audio piece that premiered during the BAI’s Remaking the Real festival. Transhida and Lawrence re-imagine the creative space of documentary practice, mapping and shaping changing existences of marginalized cultures through historical records and archives to find "the real" in mixed, "virtual," and immersive realities.

Presented by THAD-H258 Narrative Interventions: Hidden Histories in Museums and Archives, Liberal Arts Division. Support for this lecture series provided by The RISD Humanities Fund.