The newest exhibition at USC Fisher Museum of Art combines art forms like poetry, music, film and the plastic arts, including drawings and paintings. It includes some of the world’s first cosplays, early works of science fiction from the likes of renowned writer Ray Bradbury and even the controversial founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard as well as never-seen-before queer art from the early 20th century.

“Sci-fi, Magick, Queer L.A.: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation” comes to USC by way of its very own ONE Archives, the largest archive of LGBTQIA+ art pieces, publications and other materials anywhere in the world. It is an exploration of how early science fiction and its main exponents in Southern California intersected with the queer community, and certain occult practices like freemasonry and Thelema, much more than the public might be aware of.

The exhibition’s creation was overseen by ONE Archives’ curator Alexis Bard Johnson, an art historian who has dedicated her research to queer visual arts across a multitude of museums and repositories. 

“The show brings together for the first time a lot of things that up to this point were thought of as different movements or communities,” Johnson said. “What the show is really trying to prove is how overlapping and consonant they were.”

Even the ONE Archives themselves had roots in the science fiction community. Johnson explained how founder Jim Kepner was not just an activist for the queer community but also an amateur science fiction publisher.

“Kepner, before [the ONE Archives], was really involved with science fiction fandom and the Los Angeles science fantasy society … a group of science fiction fan nerds who came together,” Johnson said. “He published amateur science fiction zines.’”

However, an important point made in the exhibition is that the sci-fi covered is less about space operas and laser beams and more about having an eye for a brighter future. This mid-20th century era science fiction differs from its later counterpart in its focus, Johnson explained.

“It’s much more like an idea magazine, as much as just fan fiction or fiction around otherworldliness,” Johnson said. “It has a lot of ‘theatreization’ about what the future could hold, how the future can be different from the present.” 

Another important exponent of the melding movements of the time highlighted in the exhibition was Forrest J. Ackerman. His early form of cosplay, the original costume of which is displayed alongside his partner Myrtle Douglas’ own skirt-turned-cape, serves as a reminder that the artistic endeavors and social activism of the time are not so dissimilar from today’s own. The same can be said about some ideas of queerness as a whole.

“This period is really interesting in terms of queer history because you’re pre-Stonewall … before that, it’s a queerness a little more akin, in some ways, to queerness or gender fluidity now,” Johnson said. “The label doesn’t matter, people don’t care. Let’s explore.”

In allowing for self-discovery, these artists and contemporaries found a sense of community and communication in print publications. Magazines and other media were meant not as products for a wide audience but as channels of discourse and exchange of ideas.

“The same readers read every issue, they write back and forth. There’s letters to the editor, but they’re really letters to each other. This is a whole discourse and dialog that comes about and is played out through these amateur publications, which is really fascinating,” Johnson said. “[Lisa Ben and Jim Kepner] learned how to make community through publishing, through science fiction fandom, and then apply it … if you want to tell how early queer print publication comes to be in the US, this is one of those backstories.”

The exhibition does not shy away from uncovering the relation these same communities of science fiction and queerness had with the occult. Johnson explained how the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry became a significant part of the exhibition.

“We got very interested [in Scottish Rite], not just because Freemasonry undergirds all the esoteric secret society, homosocial spaces, but … we got very interested in Scottish Rite and the performance rituals of it, there’s every rung of the ladder succeed as a kind of performance rite,” Johnson said. 

Curatorial assistant Quetzal Arévalo delved deeper into the rites and traditions displayed in the exhibition, and how they too contributed to the greater gamut of art, the occult, and queer identity.

“Every single conferral of the degree in Scottish Rite Freemasonry involves a multi-scene play,” Arévalo said. “They had a huge, massive theater, obviously, to hold these plays … [their backdrops] were very, very specific to L.A. and were all painted by a small group of Hollywood scenic painters who also worked on films like The Wizard of Oz and various large production companies at the time, and all of them are unique and one of a kind.”

Freemason temples often had mass-produced backdrops, but the ones in the temple on Wilshire Boulevard were completely original. Arévalo stressed how this was another indicator of the particular occult community that Los Angeles had.

“There were actual production companies that just did Freemason backdrops, and they were very common visual designs that they did,” Arévalo said. “We tried to show this backdrop to a Scottish Rite Freemason backdrop expert. She had no idea what this was … these are so specific to L.A.”

Whether it be secret societies or science fantasy magazines, from pseudoscientists to rocket scientists, “Sci-fi, Magick, Queer L.A.” uncovers a world previously shrouded in secret, with the common thread of artists and activists that had enough imagination to propose a different experience, new senses and a better world. Arévalo made it clear how much these communities truly created a space for any and all backgrounds, experiences and sexualities.

“The science fiction fans were more wont to argue about whether they should have staples or no staples in their [magazines] than they were to argue about sexuality, they’re there because they’re devoted to this thing that they have a passion for.”

“Sci-fi, Magick, Queer L.A.: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation” will be showing at USC Fisher Museum of Art until Nov. 23.