The piano at the gallery entrance, with an array of framed photographs lovingly displayed on the lid, could be found in many family living rooms. But these portraits, along with more on the wall, depict members of the trans community in Argentina, collected by the Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina (Trans Memory Archive Argentina).

The 15,000-object archive, founded in 2012 to safeguard the history and memory of a community that has historically faced violence and the threat of erasure, contains newspaper clippings, police files, and personal letters as well as photos and films spanning the 20th century.

Selections from the archive are on view in an installation titled Constelaciones: Entre estrellas y cenizas (Constellations: Between Stars and Ashes) at New York’s Ford Foundation in the show “Cantando Bajito: Chorus.” It’s the finale of a three-part exhibition series celebrating artworks that fight for bodily autonomy and oppose gender-based violence, collectively curated by Isis Awad, Roxana Fabius, Kobe Ko, Beya Othmani, Mindy Seu, and Susana Vargas Cervantes.

The Archivo was conceived of by María Belén Correa and the late Claudia Pía Baudracco, who died in 2012, mere months before Argentina passed the Gender Identity Law allowing transgender people to legally change their name and gender. It was a major step forward for trans rights in the nation.

Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina’s photo installation Constelaciones: Entre estrellas y cenizas (Constellations: Between stars and ashes), 2024, at “Cantando Bajito: Chorus” at the Ford Foundation. Photo courtesy of the Ford Foundation.

“Trans women were tortured [and] brutalized during the Argentinian dictatorship and even after,” Fabius told me during a tour of the exhibition. “So there’s the celebratory aspect of the gathering and the collecting, but also the aspect of gathering information for a case against the state.”

But the Archivo, like the exhibition as a whole, is less about the suffering experienced by vulnerable communities than it is about their ability to thrive despite their struggles.

A photo of women toasting at a party from the Archivo de la Memoria Trans Argentina. Photo courtesy of the Ford Foundation.

The show’s title, which translates to “singing softly,” is inspired by Nicaraguan political activist Dora María Téllez Argüello. She remained unbowed in the face of two years of solitary confinement as a political prisoner, defiantly singing throughout, refusing to be silenced. (She has since been freed.)

The installation of photographs from the Archivo, showing women who were unabashedly themselves throughout decades of discrimination, reflects the same spirit. But where Argüello struggled alone, “Cantando Bajito” emphasizes the importance of banding together to combat gender-based violence.

Selections from Los Angeles Contemporary Archive’s “Private Practices: AAPI Artist and Sex Worker Collection” on view in the “Collective Desk” in “Cantando Bajito: Chorus” at the Ford Foundation. Photo: Sebastian Bach, courtesy of the Ford Foundation.

The show also features a “Collective Desk” that brings together even more archival materials from trans and feminist communities from around the world, including the Cyberfeminism Index in the U.S.; FAQ?, a queer feminist collective from Tokyo; and the Los Angeles Contemporary Archive’s project “Private Practices,” which features Asian American and Pacific Islander sex workers.

It’s an exhibition where art meets activism, past meets present, and tragedy meets triumph, the artists and their subjects rising above difficult circumstances against the odds.

“It’s the idea of not showing the violence, not showing the victim,” Fabius said, “but rather holding a place of resilience, resistance, and flourishing.”

“Cantando Bajito: Chorus” is on view at the Ford Foundation Gallery, 320 East 43rd Street, New York, New York, October 8–December 7, 2024.