50 YEARS OF LGBTQ HISTORY IN 5 MINUTES

NYC-based gay activist/artist Leo Herrera has edited more than 50 years of video footage to create a fascinating time-capsule of the LGBT community’s journey over the past five decades.

The 5-minute video collage is called The Fortune Teller, took six months to pit together and consists of 100 clips carefully chosen by Herrera.

NYC-based visual artist Leo Herrera

“The story is told through the trance of The Fortune Teller (played by Stanley Frank) and created using archival and modern footage,” Herrera explains on his website. “The film is a documentary and time capsule, paying homage to psychedelic films of the 1960′s and the modern art of the YouTube Montage film. From Mapplethorpe to Lohanthony, Uganda to Burning Man, Vogue to Sissy Bounce, AIDS to The Berlin Patient, meticulously edited clips create a kaleidoscopic five-minute journey through more than 50 years of gay history.”

Herrera hopes The Fortune Teller will educate young and older gay people alike about the LGBTQ experience.

 Says Herrera, “The hope is the video will go viral with each person that shares the video adding to the anthroplogical collection by sharing their own history with being gay, coming out, or perhaps sharing the story of someone in their life who has come out to them. The idea that as a culture we DO have a past, present and future is something that is very, very powerful. We didn’t come out of nowhere, and we haven’t been standing around waiting to be “accepted,” and we aren’t this monolithic culture that will just be part of any “mainstream.” There are too many facets and subcultures. Who better to tell these stories than ourselves.”

Watch the full collage below and then visit Herrera’s website to see each of the 100 clips decoded.

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