behind the curtain

acknowledgements Tkaronto

This exhibition is situated in Toronto on the land of the Anish-

naabe — including the Mississaugas of the Credit — the Haudenosaunee, the Wendat and the Petun First Nations. Toronto is an anglicization of tkaronto, a word shared across multiple Iroquoian languages meaning “the place in the water where the trees are standing.” This land has been the site of activity for well over 15,000 years. The territory is the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and a Confederacy of the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes.

As this exhibition occurs, the RCMP is occupying Wet’suwet’en

land, land defenders are experiencing violence and surveillance from the state at 1492 Land Back Lane and Mi’kmaq fisheries are being burned and damaged by commercial fishermen. “Canada” was built on stolen land, and the colonial project continues today. As a while settler living on Turtle Island, it is my responsibility to actively challenge and dismantle the settler colonial state which continues to actively displace and enact violence on Indigenous peoples.

The work of contemporary Indigenous scholars and thinkers

such as Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Eve Tuck, and Chelsea Vowel have greatly impacted me as I try to learn, unpack and dismantle white supremacy and settler colonialism. The continued work of many Indigenous thinkers, activists and artists has influenced the way in which I view my own personal history, and think about the kind of ancestor I would like to be. behind the curtain

This exhibition was conceptualized by a personal experience

that happened in November 2019. This experience has profoundly shifted 1

the ways in which I engage with organizations, institutions, and with other curators. In trying to harness those ~gay feels ~ I asked myself how could I work through these emotions in a way that for me felt helpful, and provided space to have other artists enter this conversation.

As someone whose art practice revolves around gathering other queer folks — in nightlife, in art, around the dinner table, in personal projects — I felt like I couldn’t do this work alone. Inviting other artists to provide their input felt like a healing process for me.

Conversations around censorship of 2SLGBTQIA+ artists and

activists have existed for a long time before me, and will exist for a long time after me. This conversation is not new, but it is necessary. Many community members, places and things have influenced this exhibition and its creation, including but not limited to: a curtain, Maddie Alexander, Little Sisters Bookstore, Pat Califia, the colour lavender, the word obscene, the feeling of your cheeks blushing, Inside Killjoy’s Kastle, Philip Ocampo, Marie Laing, and Pussy Palace.

Cultivator

I have adapted the title of “cultivator” rather than “curator” for

this exhibition. This is because I am not a curator, I am an artist. The title of ‘curator’ does not feel like it fits me. I was greatly inspired by Scott Miller Berry’s interview with Chris Chong Chan Fui in the book Other Places edited by Deanna Bowen. In the interview, Chris Chong Chan Fui says “a cultivator who deals with artists directly should look at an artists’ work as an infinite, unrelenting flurry, rather than a finite all-encompassing logline.” The role of cultivator is a continued and reciprocal relationship, and an endeavour to assist in the development of an artist’s practice. This relationship is not a transaction, but a relationship where trust and care are foremost — where decisions can be made together, where feedback is encouraged, and where the process doesn’t end with the installation of the work or the end of the exhibition. I love this title because it signifies growth, mutual responsibility and understanding, and tending to anxieties that come along the way.

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The Resilience of NDN Femme Bodies

by Adrienne Huard

CW: colonialism, gendered violence, sexual assault

Walking into a photography studio on the 5th floor at Concordia University in Montreal, there was techno music was blaring in contrast to the dull florescent institutional lights. Upon turning a corner, my relation, Dayna Danger stood there with one leg perched on a stool while grasping a large bottle of baby oil.

I had known that this image would be on the cover of Canadian Art magazine’s Summer 2017 Kinship issue, edited by my kin and co-curator, Lindsay Nixon. Dayna spent a considerate amount of time, massaging copious amounts of baby oil into my skin and hair. They made me feel cared for. I never considered the significance of having my oiled-up naked body displayed on the cover of a national arts magazine and what that would mean for the Indigenous community. And more specifically, what that would mean to normalize naked bodies of Two-Spirit, queer Indigenous femmes. How would that serve the representation of desexualizing Indigenous cis woman’s bodies when we are in the midst of a national crisis of MMIWG2S, when this exact sexualisation has left us disposable and insignificant to our male counterparts?

Moreover, what happens when Indigenous queers, Two-Spirits, trans, gender-variant and women reclaim our sexual agency through visual representation?

We are empowering our bodies and spirits by welcoming reciprocal relations – to feel wanted while ensuring our safety is prioritized, inherently dismantling gendered and settler colonial violence against our peoples, the land, our animal kin. You see, 4

toxic masculinity is foundational to settler colonialism. These systems – introduced by western pedagogies – place cis white men at the top of the hierarchy, whereas our Indigenous communities honoured cyclical ways of being: fluid, in motion, changing like the seasons. By emulating toxic masculinity, Indigenous cis men are perpetuating white supremacy without even knowing it.

I challenge the viewer’s gaze and stand firm in my nudity.

This is my vessel; the one that carries ancestral knowledge systems, my bloodline, my language, my spirit as I speak to Giizhe Manitou in those lodges, the maps of my people, my hair that holds those teachings.

The thing is: sex was not considered taboo for Indigenous people pre-colonization. We have old stories that are inherently sexual and old teachings in which we celebrate the bodies we were born into on our own territories – ones that have been clouded by shame, induced by the church. Shame and humiliation is a settler colonial strategy that has been imposed to weaken our communities, especially in the context of sexual sovereignty of Indigenous women and Two-Spirits.

Since working within this industry for a number of years now, the image follows me as a symbol of a network of Indigenous baddies who continue to celebrate Indigenous resilience and bodily autonomy. It is unfortunate that I have heard whispers – even within the Two-Spirit community – that the success 5

of my career solely rests on the hypersexualization of my body, diminishing the integrity of my curatorial and scholarly trajectory. Meanwhile, I remain safe and supported within a community of Two-Spirits, Indigenous trans, queer, gender non-conforming folks and women who understand the prominence of loving oneself, and how that process goes further than our physical forms, but to our spirits, our ancestors, our Creator.

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behind the

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curtain

behind the curtain

by Morgan Sears-Williams

In November 2019, I was en route to Calgary to install Femme4Femme, a collaborative exhibition with Maddie Alexander, in a local downtown library. We were excited to have our work publicly accessible in a conservative city and were thinking of the young queer and trans folks who would be able to view our work.

We hoped that young queer and trans folks would be able to see themselves through our work, and to be able to offer a space where they would feel validated, supported and acknowledged.

During the installation, in a short conversation with a senior library staff member, I was told that in order to continue with the exhibition we would be asked to remove parts of the show —in particular, the parts that referenced safer sex practices between queer people. While explaining that the exhibition came as a whole — and that they had access to all the materials months beforehand — we stated that we were unwilling to compromise our artistic integrity by removing parts of our exhibition. This conversation ended with us pulling the exhibition from the library and finding another venue.

behind the curtain is an exhibition that seeks to create an exchange about these experiences that happen often within institutional spaces, where works that are deemed “obscene” are pushed behind a curtain or removed altogether rather than allowing a potentially difficult dialogue to occur. The artists in this exhibition interrogate their own feelings regarding censorship from organizations or institutions, while also unpacking instances of their own self censorship.

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Maddie Alexander’s work is an act of intentional practice working through personal and embodied experiences. They are able to weave small moments — moments of solitude, exasperation, deep love and joy — and put them into objects that speak to me as a queer person. Acknowledging the shame and hurt that can come with their queer lived experience(s), their work is a celebration — a mirror held up to you, in a way that validates and provides a warm embrace.

In their video work, untitled, presents safer sex materials acts as a form of education and as a recognition of queer sex educators. untitled is presenting queer sex, that is seen as ‘outsider’ material — as something so normal. The safer sex materials and explanation of different tools and techniques for queer and trans sex is a nod to past queer and trans safe sex activists such as ACT UP - , and is also a method of continuing the practice of intergenerational knowledge sharing to queer and trans youth.

1978//2019, another work by Maddie Alexander, references three books that were seized in passage to Halifax’s leftist bookstore Red Herring Cooperative Books.¹ Both in response to our

¹ In 1978 Canada Customs seized a shipment from Diana press, a local lesbian feminist publishing house in California, that were on their way to Halifax’s leftist bookstore Red Herring Cooperative Books. The title of the three books seized were Lesbian Lives; Lesbian Home Journal, The Lavender Herring, and The Ladder. When Red Herring Cooperative member (cont.)

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Untitled by Maddie Alexander

untitled by Maddie Alexander 11

If Every #Trans Had a Diary by Wren Tian-Morris 12

experience in Calgary, and to ongoing censorship of queer and trans literature, Maddie has coated the books in lavender paint — a colour signifying queer resistance — and included a cut-out storage place within where safer sex items are held. Historically, the colour lavender has been used by queer folks to signal their queerness discreetly and has been used by heteronormative society to fuel discrimination and oppression. Most notably Betty Friedan, President of the National Organization for Women, labelled their lesbian readership a “Lavender Menace” insinuating that lesbians would threaten the feminist movement which was met with a reclaiming of ‘lavender’ by queer activists.

If Every #Trans Had a Diary transports us into a pixelated, black and white world through the use of a PXL-2000 camera -- a toy camcorder from 1987 which records to cassette. Wren Tian-Morris’ work explores relationships between pleasure and the body as a trans, non-binary person of colour navigating the world of (online) sex work. In these intimate vignettes, we see a hitachi magic wand, a playful bitten lip, and the artist’s hands caressing their body. While this work is seen as a personal exploration by the artist, there is also an element of healing and affirmation in their performance. Through the 8 minute video work, the Denise Roberge asked the customs officer “you mean to tell me that books on lesbians aren’t allowed into the country?” he replied “Yes, that is exactly what I mean to tell you.” (Before the Parade by Rebecca Rose, page 57)

Rose, Rebecca. Before the Parade. Nimbus Publishing Limited, January 1 2020.

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artist is the only one present and active within the frame, centering their own pleasure as a queer and trans person of colour.

Often looking at the lens as they put on latex gloves, apply lube to a dildo, wear a leather face mask, or jerk off. There is a playful nature in how Wren touches their body that teases the audience and dares us to be turned on.

A circular ‘peephole’ - resembling an eye, watching - is layered on the video work on a self-directed course, allowing the audience limited access where the concealed sections of the frame are left to our imagination. The self-directed peephole allows focus on the pixelated details of the work and demands more consideration to Wren’s intentions through their movement.

If Every #Trans Had a Diary makes us question, as an audience, what our own preconceived ideas of what belongs in private spaces and what is allowed in public spaces. In particular when it comes to queer and trans desire, and how often historically and in contemporary culture, queer people have been characterized as deviant or obscene for expressing or speaking about desire in public spaces.

behind the curtain offers several video works in which the artists use their body to present, acknowledge, or question what is in front of them and the anticipation of their audience.

In each of these works, Maddie Alexander, B.G-Osborne and Wren Tian-Morris are striking with their active participation: they remain in control of how they present themselves to us. In both the letting in and the refusal — what we are allowed to see and what we are not — the works do not exist without our participation as viewers.

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Trans Body With Scars by B. G-Osborne 15

High Visibility by Dana Buzzee

Untitled by Maddie Alexander

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“1994. Fell off small bridge in my backyard while gathering flowers, fell face first into a log. Received 16 stitches inside of lip and mouth.”

B.G-Osborne narrates, and a photograph flashes, imprinting a lingering image in your eye of a small child looking at the camera. Osborne’s work, Trans Body with Scars, is an homage to Lisa Steele’s Birthday Suit With Scars and Defects (1974) through a trans butch lens. In this video, Osborne unpacks a selection of scars and their respective origins, in presumed chronological order. After each scar is presented, an image appears for a fraction of a second. Osborne allows the audience brief access to the photographs, while refusing to provide full entry. This refusal asserts the artists agency over their performance of their body and the presentation of their memories.

Thinking through how trans bodies are often examined to the point of dehumanization by mainstream cisgender and heteronormative society, Osborne maintains control over their childhood photographs and does not allow that process of examination to begin. Only the artist is granted full access to these images, their examination, and their meaning. Trans Body with Scars, in the context of this exhibition, is a work that signifies refusal and measured access. Beck’s work allows ambiguity in their recollections, and an entry point for queer and trans viewers to understand how their refusal provides them a sense of agency over their memories and image.

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As Dana Buzzee has said to me before, her work is often soft censored— that is, gentle suggestions to hide her work from view, hang a curtain, or include signs explaining it is for a mature audience. These are suggestions that are made discreetly, involving her participation in censoring her own work. Dana Buzzee’s work High Visibility acts as a physical anchor for the video work, one that holds it together symbolically through a web design, and one that presents a deconstructed harness material, imagery similarly referenced in both Wren Tian-Morris and Maddie Alexander’s work. In the gallery, the web hangs from a large pillar to the adjacent wall, measuring 8.5’ long, obstructing the way in which audience members enter and navigate their path through the exhibition. High Visibility creates a physical form in which suggests a curtain or wall, something that obscures, yet is constructed of clear plastic vinyl. There is a humour that Dana is hinting at with her title High Visibility and calling on her experiences of curators suggesting to hide her work from view.

The physical labour involved in the construction of the web cannot go unnoticed. The work is ambiguous and non-representational, while speaking to queer sex and BDSM through material and construction. The materials honour fetish such as latex, rubber, leather and vinyl and long for sweaty bodies that can turn this object into an activation of queer desire. Highly Visible, and Buzzee’s studio outcomes in general, actively resist pandering to heteronormative sensibilities. In self-aware and pro-active obscenity, they focus deviant desires as a source of resistance to the hegemonic force of heteronormative sensibilities, centering and mirroring queer pleasure.

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While at times behind the curtain feels as a response - to larger oppressive structures that can feel out of our control - it is also an offering to honour queer and trans makers, desires and embodied experiences. Maddie Alexander, Wren Tian-Morris, Dana Buzzee and B.G-Osborne all use dynamic entry points materially and conceptually, providing an understanding of the overt and covert censorship of 2SLGBTQIA+ artists. Calling on historical, contemporary as well as visceral lived experiences, the exhibition exudes an intentional, experimental and deeply personal atmosphere. behind the curtain is an experiment, stemmed from my personal experience, but one that has brought me to a grounding place. behind the curtain is the colour lavender, it is unapologetically queer desire and self determination, it is beyond belonging, enfolding us into an embrace.

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the lesbian lesbians manifesto, TERFs and dick disengagement

by Faith Alexandra Marie

Something went wrong. You are not able to log in. (A:40303) Google: Tinder error A:40303. Search results: Tinder says, “Your account has been removed and banned from Tinder for violating our terms of service.” Apparently this happens and it’s regular occurrence for trans people.

Google: Tinder trans banned. Search results: BBC reports “Bans had resulted from ‘unfair’ complaints made about trans people ‘simply for being who they are…transgender women had been particularly affected.” ¹ I quickly realized I was banned from Tinder for being on the gay women’s side as a non-binary AMAB (assigned male at birth) transfeminine lesbian. If your account is reported 3 times, you’re automatically banned without warning or recourse to appeal.

Some queers would blame TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminist) for this Tinder banning movement that protects dating spaces for cis women. Banning is a form of censorship and functions to keep a space “safe”. This mechanism functions to prioritize safety for people with pussies (PWPs) over trans people with ¹ BBC (2019). “Tinder seeks to tackle trans harassment”. London, United Kingdom.

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dicks. Dick equals man and TERFs don’t want men or anyone with a dick in their spaces. All dicks are unilaterally considered a threat. TERFs are at least honest about how they think trans women aren’t real women and how they detest dick.

Lesbian lesbians (LLs) define themselves as the antithesis to TERFs. The Lesbian Lesbians Manifesto dictates that LLs are vocal advocates for trans rights but have a genital preference for pussy. LLs usually have vulvas and will date people across the gender spectrum including but not limited to cis women, trans people, non-binary people and trans men, just as long as they have a pussy and not a dick. LLs may also dual identify as queer, by their queerness is reduced to the vulva. LLs differ from TERFs because they acknowledge the validity of trans women being women and trans feminine people as legit.

Trans women will say: if you believe that trans women are women, then you gotta like trans dick, otherwise you are bio essentialist. LLs would never dare to publicly announce their distinct desire as exclusively PUSSY4PUSSY (P4P) yet enact this as a daily lifestyle choice.

Although TERFs and LLs seemingly have differing political philosophies, the two groups share the common connection of dick disengagement. TERFs focus on blatant exclusion while LLs 21

enact a two-step inclusion first, exclusion second model. TERFs practice overt tactics of dick disengagement by vocalizing how much they believe in bio essentialism and the erroneous fact that trans women aren’t women because they have a dick. In contrast, LLs will cast trans women and trans femmes in their fashion photo shoots or select them for panels or curate them into art shows. Supporting trans women and trans femmes in this way looks good for business models and PR tactics. LLs idolize trans women and trans feminine people by being so vocal about how much they respect and value a similar yet different embodied feminine experience.

I get it, I have many LLs in my life. I simply want to highlight a contemporary phenomena in queer culture. I don’t believe it’s right to coerce or force anyone to do anything they don’t want to do. I do appreciate honesty. I haven’t sucked a bio dick before either. I’m not opposed to it, just hasn’t happened yet. LLs could incorporate the honesty that TERFs practice into their two-step inclusion with exclusion process. Because change can’t occur when omissions of truth are practiced. I would expect TERFs to make brackish moves like reporting trans women and trans femmes on Tinder. But I wouldn’t expect that from LLs because it’s a bold move. LLs are more covert with their tactics. It’s not just about Tinder, TERFs and dick. And it’s still all about who we fuck.

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artist bios Adrienne Huard is an Anishinaabekwe currently based in Winnipeg, Manitoba and is registered at Couchiching First Nations, Fort Frances, Ontario. After graduating in 2012 from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in photography, she decided to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts majoring in art history at Concordia University in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. Huard graduated from Concordia in April 2018 and is currently attending OCAD University’s graduate-level Criticism and Curatorial Practice program. Her area of focus for study is to challenge the positioning of Indigenous art and artists within cultural institutions, and explore how to better improve these relationships to facilitate the process of Indigenous resurgence.

B.G-Osborne is a gender variant settler of Scottish and British descent born on Treaty 20 territory, currently living on unceded Kanien’kehá:ka territory. Osborne’s ongoing projects seek to address the complexities and revisionary potential of gender-variant representation/embodiment and unpack their experiences with mental illness and well-kept family secrets. They place great importance in showcasing their work in artist run centres and non-commercial galleries across Turtle Island.

Dana Buzzee’s art creates offerings of resistance and pleasure as methods for revisioning deviance through an autobiographical exploration of queer-femme identity. Buzzee’s artistic outputs function as rituals, transforming spaces for empowered moments of dominance and submission, active and informed consent culture, and a profound understanding of power and control.

Since graduating in 2012 with a BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design, Buzzee has maintained a dedicated studio-based practice and sibling-practice of feminist community organiz23

ing through arts administration and curation. Buzzee’s work has been exhibited extensively within Calgary, as well as throughout Canada. Their art has also been included in several international exhibitions in Finland, Germany, Iceland, and the USA. Buzzee’s recent solo exhibitions include such venues as Harcourt House (Edmonton), LEFT Contemporary (Windsor), The Lily, and Stride Gallery (both in Calgary). They have also participated in residency programs at the Icelandic Textile Center and NES Artist Residency (Iceland), Arteles Creative Center (Finland), Artscape Gibraltar Point, and the Roundtable Residency (Toronto), as well as Contemporary Calgary, and the Calgary Allied Arts Foundation.

Currently, Buzzee is studying towards an MFA at The University of Oregon.

Faith Alexandra Marie (they/them) is a mixed race non-binary transfeminine dyke, artist, grassroots community organizer, tattooer and writer of Filipinx, English and Irish descent. They identify as a sober addict in recovery. Faith wishes to politicize their experiences with substance use, challenge the moralizing history of sobriety culture while unraveling the limited representations of the addicted body. Faith is a Co-Founder of Pieces to Pathways, a peer-led substance use substance use support program for queer and trans youth ages 16 to 29 years old located at Breakaway Addiction Services in the Parkdale area of Toronto, Canada. @living.not.existing @needle.imprints @pieces.to.pathways Maddie Alexander is a queer, trans non-binary artist, arts facilitator, archivist, and educator. Their multidisciplinary practice interrogates experiences of queer sovereignty. They hold a BFA 24

in Photography from OCAD University, and are currently an MFA candidate at NSCAD University. Their work has exhibited locally and internationally and they received the Project 31 Photography Award in 2016. Their work examines the precarity of queer spaces, and representations of queer and trans experience in pop culture and mass media. They approach this through a community-oriented practice and utilize DIY techniques to produce environmental experiences. Their work pulls from sourced materials, as well as personal narrative to explore themes of desire, failure, connection, and dissonance.

Wren Tian-Morris is a Chinese canadian, trans non-binary (wannabe) artist working out of K’jipuktuk (Halifax). Their interdisciplinary practise often revolves around their identity, exploring themes of queerness, pleasure, and diaspora with special care for lense-based work. They take pleasure in working with various mediums and performative elements. They tend to work collaboratively when possible as they are drawn to the playful and healing nature that working with others can bring about. Currently, they are finishing their BFA in Expanded Media studies at NSCAD University.

Morgan Sears-Williams is a white settler of Irish, English and German descent working in Tkaronto. Her practice often explores larger themes of feminist queer histories, collective memory and questioning institutional archiving practices. She likes to experiment with image making, installation, publications, and mixed media works as a tool for self-exploration. She is interested in collaboration and how acts of solidarity and care can be in turn acts of resistance.

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Lina Wu is a multi-disciplinary artist and illustrator based in Tkaronto (Toronto). She is figuring out how to be soft and strong at the same time. You can talk to her at linawu13@gmail.com.

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Behind the Curtain was cultivated

by Morgan Sears-Williams in 2020 at Xpace Cultural Centre.

This booklet was edited by Morgan Sears-Williams.

It was designed and illustrated by Lina Wu (@linaw_u).