The exhibition that was developed and shown in the 10 days I was in Banff was a visual depiction of this blog. It uses imagery and quotes from my adventures to Saskatoon, New York and Banff that referenced gender and sexuality to create a visual collection of my experiences. 
The mural piece on the left wall referenced Saskatoon, showing images of a Drag Queen from Divas, silos on the horizon looking like two tits, and the city skyline where a lady lounges in skimpy attire between the large blue sky with the bathroom graffiti “you are going to know me and you are going to FUCKING LOVE ME”, the outline of a knee in fishnet stockings and below, luggage tags mimicking the grain growing on the land. Each luggage tag provides the viewer with a sexualized quote I encountered or reference to an image included in the mural including its location from my trip.
The back wall consisted of one ink drawing of me in my Pride parade outfit, arm raised to grab the subway rail/security cameras with my armpit hair exposed. The accompanying projection repeated the drawing, rocking back and forth to mimic the movement in the subway. The first animation consisted of a lady sitting on the subway relaxed. A man enters and sits beside her, his legs spread wide, touching her knee. She tolerates for a few seconds before crossing her legs, leaning away from him. After he leaves, she continues to sit in discomfort until she leaves on her own stop. Animation two consisted of armpit hair growing out of the ink figures pit, reaching the floor before falling out while animation three showed two figures exiting the security cameras, and upon seeing the other gender, ditching their gendered clothing and donning the others.
Each animation has an accompanying quote; from my sketchbook, derived from my own experience on the subway, “Sitting on the subway beside a man, he spreads his legs wide, claiming his space, intruding on mine. My feminine training makes me cross my legs, shrinking smaller to not touch his, surrendering to his patriarchal dominance.” from Alix Olsen’s Armpit hair song, “There were no seats in the subway so I had to grab a strap as I lifted up my arm I heard a scream “what’s that?” I took a look around, I thought there must be something scary like a lion or a tiger or the Virgin Mary? But then I noticed they were looking at me I heard Oh My Gawd, They’re Hairy!”, this is a song I was introduced to in Saskatoon, but then realizing Olsen is from Brooklyn and worked alongside Berenice and Linda on the Crystal Quilt project. Finally to go with the figures that swap clothing, I include a quote from two transgender eight year olds on the Chicago radio show This American Life “I just think of my self sometimes as a regular kid. A boy or a girl? No. A lot of the time I think of myself as a regular person. Regular. Just a regular person… I’ll forget I’m even something. I’ll think I’m just a little tiny speck just laying there and I’m not even a boy or a girl, I’m just sitting there.”
The final wall mural consisted of breast like mountains from the Banff skyline to counterbalance the prairies on the opposing wall, a deer threesome, courtesy of the Museum of Sex, a fourth deer showing us his tail, looking like a flaccid penis and the outlines of two artworks from the Banff Institute campus, long erections of ceramic forms and a vinyl sign stating “Meet me in the woods” suggesting a sexual liaison in the woods.
Finally, another smaller installation painting used three more images from my trip – an old bathroom sign staying “a necessary room for gentlemen” from Eamons in Brooklyn, three male urinals, dripping in acrylic, and another sign “wash your hands before leaving this room” from the LGBT center meeting room/ex bathroom. These urinals commented on the only architectural difference in the gendered washrooms, the reason I felt uncomfortable entering the male toilets.
The artwork was placed alongside Niknaz Tavakolians’s work, an artist who lives in New York, only a few blocks from where we were staying in Brooklyn. She had four movies looking at liminality of gender, age, race and place that complimented my traveling gendered project. Our works were linked through subject and theory as well as our use of technology, Niknaz with her digitally altered videos and my use of hand drawn stop motion.
No comments:
Post a Comment