50 Postcards. Queer Art. Everywhere!

To Our Community,

Thank you for visiting The Bureau of Queer Art with the intention of supporting our work—work that, for the last six years, has centered Queer & allied artists and created space for connection, resistance, and visibility. Whether you came here hoping to collect the 50 Postcards box set or to learn more about what we do, I want to speak to you with the same honesty that shapes everything we create.

This letter is to let you know that the 50 Postcards project has been halted. The presale brought in only five purchases—far below the minimum required to begin production. Press minimums, material costs, and shipping realities make it impossible to fulfill the edition at scale. And without fulfilling the edition, we can’t carry out the larger intention behind it: to raise funds that would help transport the work of Mexican artists to our next international exhibition, an art fair in the U.S., and sustaining the base of our mission.

If you are one of the five people who purchased a set, please know how deeply your support is appreciated. We will be in touch in the coming weeks with options to honor your purchase and your trust.

This project was never simply about selling prints. It was a gesture—an invitation—to use art as a form of presence and protest. These postcards were designed to speak on behalf of those who have been made invisible. They were meant to live in your homes, your classrooms, your waiting rooms—quietly declaring: you are not alone, you are not forgotten, you are not erased.

I believed in this project. And I still do. But I misjudged the moment. Or perhaps, I misjudged the readiness of others to engage in this particular act of shared meaning-making.

As an artist—and as someone who has spent a lifetime watching history repeat itself with new packaging—I feel overwhelmed by what’s happening in the U.S. I’ve long feared a return to fascism, but I hadn’t prepared myself for how softly it would slip into place, how easily we would be asked to look away while rights are stripped and people disappear from the center of the narrative.

This isn’t abstract. I was one of those kids who knew what it meant to be feared, legislated, and made silent. I remember what it felt like to stand in a classroom, forced to pledge allegiance to a country that would not protect me or my friends. I’ve watched “good intentions” be used to justify cruelty.

I’ve spent my life working against the ignorance that breeds fascism, and still, I see how the same old forces—exclusion, conformity, and fear—slip into our queer communities under new names and good intentions.

I made this project for the kid in Indiana who thinks everything will make sense once he gets to San Francisco or New York—only to face the quiet inheritance of the systems we were all raised in.

For me, Queer has always meant liberation. A breaking open. The realization, often late and hard-won, that you don’t need to belong to matter. That your truth doesn’t have to match anyone else’s. That the rainbow flag is not salvation, and Pride, at its core, is not a parade—it’s a protest. Or it was.

So yes, the postcard project didn’t meet its goal. But the need it responded to still exists. And the spirit of it—the reason it was created—remains unchanged. It was never just about sending art through the mail. It was about sending messages to each other. Messages we still need.

We will keep creating. We will keep showing up. Not because it’s easy. But because it’s necessary. And because none of us are free while any of us are suffering.

—
Micheal Swank,
Founder, The Bureau of Queer Art

If you would still like to support the mission behind this project and help us continue amplifying Queer and Allied artists, you can make a donation here. Every contribution helps sustain the work we do.

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