Queer Cultural Center

Founded in 1993, Queer Cultural Center (QCC) is a multiracial community-building organization that fosters the artistic, economic, and cultural development of San Francisco’s LGBT community. QCC implements its mission by operating programs that commission and present Queer artists and by promoting the development of culturally diverse Queer arts organizations and events in San Francisco.

In 2011, QCC launched its first season of year-round presentations and staged a series of approximately 25 arts programs in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco. These presentations and programs explored medical and mental health issues such as living with life threatening diseases, amphetamine abuse, and working in the sex industry.

QCC began operating  “Creating Queer Community” in 2000 by awarding five small commissions ranging from $500 to $1500. Since then, QCC has commissioned approximately 60 LGBT artists to create new works that authentically express the community’s diverse experiences. Over the past seven years, the vast majority of these commissions have been awarded to culturally-specific and gender-specific individual artists whose work expresses the experiences of queers of color, Lesbians, and Transgendered people. The commissioned work has broadened the Queer community’s understanding of the fluid nature of racial and gender identities and has provided many insights into what people of different races, gender identities and ages actually think. QCC has received major grants from the Haas Foundations’ Creative Work Fund, the Gerbode Foundation and the San Francisco Foundation to expand its commissioning activities.