about

ira beare is a jamaican-american dyke artist based in chicago and western massachusetts. their studio practice includes fiber arts, ceramics, and design. their writing practice includes critical and academic work. they are interested in archives, jewish ritual, text-based art, and love. they are committed to sincerity.

they are the co-operator of bookends in florence, a lesbian bookstore and community space, where they curate the DYKEUMENTARY screening series and co-founded the Lesbian Reading Room, an archive of lesbian print materials. they have taught a variety of art classes and workshops, including quilting, clothing design, mending & alterations, hand-built ceramics, hypertext, double knitting, and more.

beare completed both a BA and a post-baccalaureate fellowship in film & media studies at smith college. they are currently a PhD student in the screen cultures department of northwestern university. their research interests include sexual violence, lesbian and trans archives, materialist feminism, and trans medicine.

you can explore some of this research in not only will i stare, a hypertext essay that explores a diverse range of approaches to representation of rape, including rape/revenge as a narrative cycle, digital subcultures of survivors, rape fetishism, true crime, and more. they blog infrequently on substack.

photo by helena lamb