None on Record: Stories of Queer Africa | Selly Thiam | Talks at Google

The @Google program welcomed Selly Thiam to Google's New York office to discuss her audio based oral history project "None on Record: Stories of Queer Africa (NOR)".

"In 2004, FannyAnn Eddy, an LGBT activist from Sierra Leone,West Africa was murdered in the offices of the Sierra Leone Lesbian and Gay Association. The news of her murder circulated around the world and was a turning point for Selly Thiam, a Senegalese lesbian living in the United States. To honor the African QLGBT (queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) spirit that Fanny Ann embodied, she began collecting the oral histories of QLGBT Africans from the African Continent and in the Diaspora."

"None on Record: Stories of Queer Africas mission is to bring the stories of QLGBT (queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered) Africans into the forefront of media and media-making. It is a web-based archive, a media-making production crew and community-building tool for the global African LGBT population. Here you will find:

• Stories from QLGBT Africans who have received refugee status or are seeking asylum in Canada, South Africa and the United States.
• Interviews from South Africas first openly gay music group, 3SUM, and Trans Playwright, Nick Mwaluko.
• Original, unpublished written works and visual art from QLGBT Africans showcasing how their experiences have shaped them emotionally, politically, socially, and culturally."

This event took place on February 11, 2010.