Owning Their Own Stories

An ethnographic study of Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project in San Francisco

This brief looks at how an organization’s mission to serve underrepresented identities in filmmaking builds a community around art and activism.

December 2025

2 Min Read

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Table of Contents

Overview

Ideas In Practice

Publisher(s)
The Wallace Foundation

Page Count 2 pages

DOI Link
https://doi.org/10.59656/A-AO9074.001

Summary

How we did this

The researcher and QWOCMAP staff collaborated to design the research process. The researcher observed participants in staff meetings, retreats, and programmatic events as well as interviews with QWOCMAP’s communities.

Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP) has made filmmaking more accessible to queer women of color for more than 25 years. Through their ethnographic research with researcher Silvia Rodriguez Vega, Ph.D., the study highlights how the organization defines and works toward their goal of increasing accessibility in the film industry by nurturing LGBTQIA+ filmmakers of color. It also examines how they use the power of storytelling to draw attention to experiences of inequality and build a community around art and activism.

The study outlines the systemic lack of resource investment in QWOCMAP’s work and the impact that has had on their goals to increase representation in the film industry. It also points to opportunities for funders to better support art and artists from underrepresented communities.

This brief is based on a study by Silvia Rodriguez Vega, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara. To learn more about the zine Rodriquez Vega and QWOCMAP created together, click here.

Just seeing this work of art that I have created actually come to fruition…I think that was where this dream of who I really am meant to be…really started to take hold.
— program participant