Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
Lola Flash is an artist and activist whose vibrant photographic work encompasses themes of race, gender, and intergenerational representation. As a longtime figure in the downtown arts community of New York City, Flash participated in AIDS activist poster campaigns created by Gran Fury, the media offshoot of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). Many of the photographs created at this point in Flash’s career were for their Cross-Colour series, a collection of inverted color images that feature a bold and richly saturated portrayal of their personal life and activism in the 1980s and 1990s. More recently, Flash’s projects have used portraiture to push back against dominant beauty standards and negative depictions of marginalized communities, instead promoting and amplifying positive visual representations of people who are often overlooked.
Lola Flash is the Board President for Queer|Art and an active member of Kamoinge, a collective of Black photographers who work to preserve the history and culture of the African Diaspora. In addition to their career as an artist, Flash was a K-12 educator for many years and is now a retired teacher focused solely on their creative practice. Visitors are invited to hear Lola Flash speak about these experiences and the work that they have produced over the past four decades.
The Wish You Were Here series is generously supported by Thomas N. Tischer, PhD.
This lecture occurred on Thursday, March 6, 2025 at the Dryden Theatre.
Lola Flash is an artist and activist whose vibrant photographic work encompasses themes of race, gender, and intergenerational representation. As a longtime figure in the downtown arts community of New York City, Flash participated in AIDS activist poster campaigns created by Gran Fury, the media offshoot of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). Many of the photographs created at this point in Flash’s career were for their Cross-Colour series, a collection of inverted color images that feature a bold and richly saturated portrayal of their personal life and activism in the 1980s and 1990s. More recently, Flash’s projects have used portraiture to push back against dominant beauty standards and negative depictions of marginalized communities, instead promoting and amplifying positive visual representations of people who are often overlooked.
Lola Flash is the Board President for Queer|Art and an active member of Kamoinge, a collective of Black photographers who work to preserve the history and culture of the African Diaspora. In addition to their career as an artist, Flash was a K-12 educator for many years and is now a retired teacher focused solely on their creative practice. Visitors are invited to hear Lola Flash speak about these experiences and the work that they have produced over the past four decades.
The Wish You Were Here series is generously supported by Thomas N. Tischer, PhD.
This lecture occurred on Thursday, March 6, 2025 at the Dryden Theatre.
