BERLIN COPENHAGEN AMSTERDAM CHICAGO P.E.I. VANCOUVER OSHAWA NICE SEATTLE TORONTO

I am back from my whirlwind trip from Europe! Now I will have Montreal as my homebase as per usual for eight months.

I landed in Berlin and had a very enjoyable birthday with new and old friends. I was so inspired by Liz Rosenfeld, Sadie Weis, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, and Cary Cronenwett – all hyper talented North Americans who have moved to Berlin to create art and films. I curated Love is Like the Weather with my best friend Mascha Nehls who helps to organize Entzaubert – the most radical film festival in the world in a forest in a queer wagonplatz!

I had the honour of curating North American artists: Vincent Chevalier, Crystal Mason, Kristin Li, Josh Vettivelu, Sofia Moreno, Nabeela Vega, Lamathilde, Jamie Ross, Shayo Detchema, Raphaële Frigon, Nikki Forrest, Florence S. Larose, Elisha Lim, GAYMOUS, Rae Spoon & Chelsea McMullan, Malic Amalya, Eduardo Restrepo Castaño & Nash Glynn, E Hearte, Dayna McLeod & Jackie Gallant.

Also I got to view a test run of CUNT LAB‘s new performance art work which was amazing. I was so pleased to provide performance art support for my friends at the Queer Gala at the Kopi which was an incredible night. It’s always one of my favourite nights in Berlin curated by Miss Tobi and If.

I curated Love is Like the Weather in Denmark with Mix Copenhagen with the help of the Kapow Collective. There I met with amazing performance artists friends that I met in Beijing almost 5 years ago. Anu Ramdas, Nanna Lysholt Hansen and Trine Mee Sook. I wiki-edited for International Women’s Day and I got to add Anu, Nanna and Jane Jin Kaisen to Wikipedia! I also got to meet up with Birthe from the Feminine Moments blog.

AND! I curated an over sold out show in one of my favourite cities Amsterdam with the sweeties of Transcreen. I was inspired there by Eliza Steinbock, Sebastian Deline and k.g. guttman – all North Americans that have moved there to study, teach and create. Also my Italian tech friend Giuliana Dieni and I talked about an exciting future collaboration with Corrine Teed.

I managed to shoot and edit a few new films in Berlin as well one which I think will be a hit with Tamir Shmeltzer Frenkel Lederberg.

Back in North America this winter We Don’t Want to Marry was in the Outsider Fest in Austin. I was delighted to have my film Domesticity be a part of Rendez-vous du Cinéma Québécois –LE GIV AUX RVCQ in Quebec. On March 13 I was curated in Montreal by Kimura Byol for L’Institut Simone de Beauvoir célèbre les 40 ans du GIV / Simone de Beauvoir Institute Celebrates 40 Years of GIV. Nabeela Vega, Angela Gabereau and I also curated a QPOC version of Future Visions in Boston.

Also in Montreal at Edgy Redux at Studio 303 – Alexis O’Hara and Hannah Morrow joint MCed Future Visions for Nuit Blanche! Somehow by gay miracle we now have 117 video artists that foretell the queer future! Also Angela the hacker genius made a new one card spread so check that out here on your smart phone. Big thank you to Andrea Joy for making this epic projected audience interactive project come together.

I helped to buy a cinema! With The Party’s Over

Upcoming news!

Lesbian Hand Gestures and Narcissus are making a comeback in Chicago with Cruising Tracks curated by Rebecca Ladida at the Chicago International Movies and Music Festival

In Vancouver I am performing Stop Beating Yourself Up. I can’t wait to see my communities there! I am performing at the Queer Arts Festival in Vancouver this July! At the end of May I also have a show with the same work but it is a 5 minute video loop installation  in Oshawa at The Robert McLaughlin Gallery called Boxing: The Sweet Science curated by Linda Jansma. Stills from this performance shot by Morgan Sea are gracing the cover of the show’s catalogue.

For the very first time in my life I am performing in Chicago at Out of Site with brand new secret work!

I am travelling to Art in the Open in Prince Edward Island at the end of August with Plush and Scream Choir:

Sarah Wendt and I are looking for people for our Scream Choir in Charlottetown if you know anyone or just want to join us for swimming in the Atlantic after screaming! Also we are creating a new choir for this festival – A Laugh Choir!

Also Theory Boner is now available on Just Seeds and Etsy. This screenprinted zine is my first attempt at collage for many years and was curated by Mary Tremonte and Jenna Lee Forde in Toronto.

My films are going on all sorts of adventures without me around the world!!!

Genderless Jellyfish and Narcissus are going to Seattle Transgender Film Festival 

Genderless Jellyfish is going to Transcreen in Amsterdam in June.

We Don’t Want to Marry is going to In & Out in Nice France at the end of April.

All screenings thanks for my wonderful distributors GIV in Montreal. ❤

falling into the west coast winter

☽ ☾ SEPTEMBER ☽ ☾

 

For the fall equinox I curated for two days at Le Petit Versailles in the Lower East Side in New York alongside Yvette Choy and Troy Davis

Priestess of Ceremonies: Maya Suess

☽ ☾ ARTISTS ☽ ☾
Aja Rose Bond / Beth Frey / Cupid Ojala / Jade Yumang / Jamie Ross
Piera Yerkes / Tif Robinette / The Cave Collective  / THE NYX PROJECT

☽ ☾ FILMMAKERS ☽ ☾

Cory Kram / Vivek Shraya / Barbara Roland / Pippi Zornoza / Sarah Pupo
SoJin Chun / Sophie Seita / JuanCarlos Zaldivar / Mihee-Nathalie Lemoine
Zuzu Knew / Joshua Vettivelu

LIVE SILK SCREENING  BY Out Of Line Press

Le Petit Versailles is a NYC public community garden in the East Village that presents art exhibitions, music, film/video, performance, theater, workshops, and community projects.

On the very same night my video collaboration with my dear friend Pippi from Dirt Palace entitled Mother was screened at SVA in NYC as well! The work was installed on a loop in the gallery:

After these magical experiences, I flew to Calgary to workshop and costume a brand new performance entitled Flânerie that I created with my assistant Zuzu Knew for Mountain Standard Time, one of the largest performance art festivals in Canada . Here are some photos of Megan Morman, Tanya Plonka, Shyra de Souza, Jenna Swift, Sheri Nault, Bogdan Cheta, Desiree Nault, Miguel Michelena, Lee Allard and Rebecca Blankert. This performance was curated by Tomas Jonsson.

Coral Short recreates the finery of the flâneur with a roving street intervention. This mysterious group resists the dreary world within each slow, fanciful step they take. These fantastical creates leisurely stroll down the streets, their eyes drinking in everything around them, transforming into beautiful vignettes, dripping with lace and silk. Together they create a new visual language with their high dandy fashion, becoming a certain celebration, a unifying symbol in defiance of the conservative powers that be. The flâneurs and flâneuses are fascinated by all around them, as well as being a source of fascination for the public.

photos by bbb Johannes Deimling, Ilyon, and Tavia Maheu

 ☽ ☾ OCTOBER ☽ ☾

 

On October 7 I had the honour of being in Mix Copenhagen again with We Don’t Want to Marry and Genderless Jellyfish

Also during the third week of  October I gave back to two tremendous cultural producers in my life with my good friend Veronique Mystique – together we shot Sunny Drake‘s new as of yet unseen video work and Sasha Kleinplatz‘s choreography entitled MEN on at Place Des Arts in Montreal, Quebec.

☽ ☾ NOVEMBER ☽ ☾

 

At the beginning of November on the sacred date of Samhain I led a ritual with my friend Karine-Myrgianie Jean-François and my gay husband Troy La Biche Davis in which we literally wove the entire community together while they spoke a word or words that had meaning for them. Some of the words included: forgiveness, support, mutual aid, patience, accountability, family. The interconnectedness of us all is the real magic in this world. 

photo by kimura byol

Early november I was in the the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival for the opening night with the crowd-pleasing genderless jellyfish once again with many people I love and care about in attendance.

I edited insanely hard on my first draft from 2 hours of footage of Stop Beating Yourself Up to 8 minutes for The Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa curated by Linda Jansma. This video shot by Morgan Sea will be projected on a loop in the gallery. shayo detchema helped me to experiment with a pixelated version which was exciting.

November 15 was the day THEORY BONER by Mary Tremonte and Jenna Lee Forde was made available to the public at Expozine in Montreal. THEORY BONER zine explored and celebrated intersections of feminist, queer, and anti-racist theory and creative practice. My page was of chosen family of various forms of queer kinship.

On November 21 Narcissus screened in Melbourne for tilde! Just in case you never saw my cute ex boyfriend Logan A. Curley:

angela gabereau my genius collaborator for future visions and I were delighted to be invited to exhibit our arcade machine at Les HTMLles in Montreal. We got a new surge of future prophecies from all over the place to bring us to ONE HUNDRED PROPHECIES OF THE QUEER FUTURE! New prophecizers include the following powerhouses: Bogdan Cheta, Holly Chernobyl, Sandrine Deumier, Charles Ernest Roberts III, FILMARALHO & FRIENDS, Andrew Tay, Gurcius Gewdner, Pedro Costa, Fahmida Urmi Hossain,  Lamathilde, Troy Davis, Sasha Kleinplatz, Lailye and Malik, Nabeela Vega, E. Hearte, christian xtn hansen, Winnie Superhova, Beth Tub and Sunny Sundog Doyle. Take a look at the new video works here:

I also got asked to sit on a queering cyberfeminism panel which was fascinating but I felt we really just touched the tip of the iceberg as there are so many issues to talk about! It was very exciting to meet the other thought-provoking panelists.

Later in november I was so deeply honoured to be asked to do a performance at St. Mark’s Church in the Bowery in the Lower East Side in New York City by curator Jen Rosenblit as part of the Food for Thought series and Danspace programming. She chose my work Social which I created with Lamathilde in Montreal a few years back which is like a giant group handfasting ritual but each audience member is matched with a stranger. I was lucky enough to perform with Ariel Speedwagon and Zachary Wager-Scholl and for my first time with Jen Rosenblit and Tif Robinette who are all art dreamboats!

☽ ☾ DECEMBER ☽ ☾

 

I visited the bay area in December and hung out with artist and curator friends lex non scripta on a boat and at his craft fair magic makers. I also got to buy stuff from jessika fancy from montreal and see my old friend textaqueen! I finally got to see Zeph Fish‘s artist collective new living space called Lobot in West Oakland my old neighbourhood. and I got to go see Alien She in San Francisco with Celeste Chan and KB. I was so suprised to see that I had connections to almost everyone in that show! And that I was in fact in the show in some ways as an actual riot grrl in the early 1990s. Here’s my zine and also me holding L.J.‘s woven Queeruption flier banner at the Dyke March in New York City. Random side note I have been to 3 Queeruptions (Berlin, London, Amsterdam) and helped to organize the last ever Queeruption in 2007 on the sunshine coast just outside Vancouver.

Above is my dear friend Jen from Submission Hold (the photo above is when she was in Insult to Injury) who I stay with when I am in Vancouver. We’ve known each other since 1992! This zine was behind glass and in the reading library in the show.

Here is another project I was involved in in Alien She – my Montreal university friends Courtney Dailey, Onya Hogan-Finlay and Leila Pourtavaf created a Bookmobile in the early 2000s which my artist books travelled around North America in.

The last artistic things I did in December were

– shoot new footage all the time
– buy my tickets for europe for non stop art action
– work in a metalshop in sf

– get my hands dirty doing archeology on my giant stone vagina earth art at Albany Bulb. Above and below photo credits to Trixie Albert.

andddddd a fascinating interview with Karin Cope (NSCAD) who is writing about me and a lot of my amazing genderqueer friends such as Coco Riot, Elisha Lim, Alvis Parsley and more. I can’t wait to see some academic writing about the projects and change we work so hard to create in our different ways. She is writing about genderless jellyfish! Here are some excerpts:

 The last piece of good news is the new textiles work that I curated by Aja called Whole Time was in a gay wedding! Peter Cramer sent me this magical romantic photo:

Ok.Quoi?! and Sappyfest in Sackville, New Brunswick

This summer I was the film curator of OK Quoi Contemporary Arts Festival run by Struts Gallery in Sackville, New Brunswick. In honor of this occasion I created a bill called Love is Like the Weather.

Love. We can’t live without it! One of our favorite conversation topics will be investigated thoroughly through a wide range of stunning Canadian queer video makers. This program is about the changeable nature of love throughout our lives including its successes and blisses as well as its trials and tribulations. Love includes both the bright sunny days as well as the cloudy storms of our tender hearts. The filmmakers will cover many of the miraculous fluctuating states that love brings to our bodies and minds. This curation is full of searching and journeying through beautifully visceral landscapes, through heartache, desire, vulnerability and intimacy.

The bill featured brand new works by Shayo Detchema, Kristin Li, Dayna Mcleod and Jackie Gallant. Here is the order of this fantastic new program:

Ah L’amour – Lamathilde

Tremblement de Chair – Mirah Soleil & Mark Karbusicky

Two to a Blanket, Feet to the Fire – Jamie Ross

les idees noire – Florence S. Larose

That Beauty – Deirdre Logue

Flip Bend Parts 1 – Nikki Forrest

Ocean Blue – Rae Spoon & Chelsea McMullan

The Ex Bank – Elisha Lim

You Don’t Own Me – Kristin Li

Glory Hole – Josh Vettivelu

COVER – Vincent Chevalier

Creep – Dayna Mcleod and Jackie Gallant

L’hiver Inconsolable – Shayo Detchema

The Rosa Song – Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay

We were lucky enough to have filmmaker Elisha Lim join us all the way from Toronto for our Q and A afterwards. Afterwards we all went to the next door little bar called Thunder & Lightening who made us a special Love cocktail just for the occasion! Huge thank you to Jeff from the Vogue Cinema for allowing us to screen our shorts in this amazing historic theatre.

I also had the chance to meet interesting local artists Linda Rae Dornan, Helen Pridmore, Monica Pearce (sound artist in residency from Toronto) and WL during their workshops and performances at different venues around town as part of Ok Quoi. I got to collaborate through sound recordings on Monica Pearce’s piece which you can hear here:  I walked through Sackville in deep listening mode the whole week thinking intently about the soundscapes all around me.

Also on the last day of OK Quoi we performed Scream Choir with 22 Maritimers from PEI, Halifax and Sackville plus one Torontonian and one Calgarian! Only 7 short on our Montreal Scream Choir of 29! (see vid above) But for the first time ever we recorded our rehearsals with my iphone which you can hear here on my soundcloud

Sackville Screamers!

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Benjamin Dugdale
Chrissy Lorette
Coral Short
Cynthia Naggar
Devin Krupnick
Elliott Q Hearte
Rachel MacLeod
Heidi Dawn
Ingrid Forrester Wendt
Jacqueline Nora
Jude Ashburn
Julia Fleur
Katie Ewald
Katie Ward
Kelly M Hill
Mollie Cronin
Rebecca Blankert
Rita McKeough
Russell Louder
Samra Habib
Tara K. Wells
Zora Wendt

Sackville has a population of 3,000 and Montreal has 1.621 million people, so we were thrilled about our 22 choir member turnout. We had some very talented screamers in our choir! My collaborator Sarah Wendt (conductor) and Russell Louder (vocal coach) came in from Prince Edward Island to help this work be realized. We would like to thank Struts Gallery/ OK Quoi Contemporary Arts Festival, Sappy Fest for making this performance possible.

Huge thanks to E. Hearte, James Andrews, Julia Fleur, Leah Garnett, Rebecca Blankert, for making our stay incredible as both hosts and community art organizers and supporters. And everyone at Struts! You all should apply to do shows here and residencies. You will be treated very well.

EASTERN EDGE AND ENCUENTRO

EASTERN EDGE

I created 4 performances while I was in Newfoundland, but the one I was most excited about in the end was…

Croning

Part of my performance art residency at Eastern Edge.Thank you to curator Mary MacDonald. And very grateful for support from Joe Fowler, April May June July, Alex Cafarelli, Jamie Ross, Juls Generic, Michelle Cedar Bush and my mother. Also thank you to everyone who walked this journey with me at sunset into the darkness.

Photos by Devon Crosby

also see my piece Plush in Newfoundland here. Insiders photos coming soon!

ENCUENTRO

I created two brand new works for Encuentro this summer in Montreal that I have been planning out for quite a few years in my head. I was very happy to release these ideas into the world!

Nest

Nest is an interactive sculpture that is about caring for our community’s cultural producers and activists. I encouraged the audience at Hemispheric Institute Encuentros to take a load off by finding my large, human-sized nest on wheels pushed by me Coral Short on the street. The nest was created out of woven willow and urban nature foraging, but the velvety nest interior provided a great place for a selfie or to chirp with a friend.

Ceramic egg created by Wai-Yant Li (Créations Li)

Photos by Nikol Mikus

HUGE THANK YOU to my nest creation team: Zuzu Knew, D.j. Fraser, Morgan Paige, Asher Faerstein, Troy La Biche Davis, Wai-Yant Li, Felix Foxglove, Lailye Weidman, Molly Caudle, Alexis O’Hara, Tif Flowers, Julie Matson and K. Also thank you to Johnny Forever and Lisa Gamble for all the things. And my mom, Charlie Meyers, Emma Deboncoeur, BD Owens and Michelle Cedar Bush.

Scream Choir

The piece is comprised of a large group of people standing in the formation of a traditional choir. Instead of sung notes, they blast the public. The screamers pour out emotions of anger, pain and more, in tonal yells and primal screams. This cathartic work releases pent up rage against the frustrating capitalist patriarchal machine. This sound ritual aims to be a transformative experience for both performers and audience.

Conductor: Sarah Wendt
Producer: Coral Short
Photographer: Nikol Mikus
Videographer: Shayo Detchema
Sound: Alvis Kernel Parsley
Assistants: Emma Russell Louder and Felix Foxglove
Mentor: Kathy Kennedy
Curators: Stephen Lawson and Shauna Janssen
For Hemispheric Institute Encuentros

29 screamers in alphabetical order: Alexis O’Hara
Chloe Lum, Christina Aushana, Coral Short, Damien Luxe, Dan Providence, Daniel Rosza, Denise Kenney, Emma Deboncoeur, Emma Russell Louder, Erin Sexton, Felice Shays, Fernanda Branco Polse, Ian Goodman, Jess Dobkin, K Hanley, Lailye Weidman, Loulou von Kohl, Maya Suess, Michael V. Smith, Morgan Paige, Neil Cadger, Nyx Zierhut, Reena Katz, Simon White, Sunny Doyle, Tanya Evanson, Viva Delorme and an unknown woman.

FUTURE VISIONS!

Future Visions is DONE!!! Thanks to the 83 participants who created videos for this epic interactive web based work created by myself and Angela Gabereau. Press SHUFFLE to interact with this amazing online art project. Future Visions will also be available for view at a feminist art festival in Montreal. Details forthcoming…

We welcome you to enter the worlds of our visionaries

83 visionaries from 7 countries, 13 states, 4 provinces and 31 different cities:

1. xander alexander and Orion, Atlanta, Georgia
2. Fre Atlast by Ocean, Rosendale, New York
3. Crystal Azul & Gr Keer, Oakland, California
4. Antonio Bavaro, Montréal, Québec
5. Micah Bazant, Oakland, California
6. KB Tuffy Boyce, San Francisco, California
7. Kimura Byol, Brussels, Belgium
8. Marc-André Lion Casavant, Montréal, Québec
9. Cheto Castellano & Lissette Olivares, New York, New York
10. Celeste Chan, San Francisco, California
11. Camerin Cobb, Vancouver, British Columbia
12. Sarolta Jane Cump + Zeph Fish, Oakland, California
13. Joey Cupcake, San Francisco, California
14. Charlotte Cooper, London, England
15. Megan May Daalder, L.A., California
16. Maria f Dolores, Berlin, Germany
17. James Diamond, Montréal, Québec
18. Angel Favorite and dominika ksel, Brooklyn, New York
19. whit forrester, Louisville, Kentucky
20. Lisa Gamble, Montréal, Québec
21. Lisa Ganser, San Francisco, California
22. Julz Hale Mary, Oakland, California
23. Samara Halperin, Oakland, California
24. Local Honey and Julie Alsop, New Orleans, Louisiana and Brooklyn, New York
25. Devin Hellfire, Baltimore, Maryland
26. Aubrey Heichemer, Berlin, Germany
27. Xon Henry, Harrisbourg, Virginia
28. Tania Hernández Herrera, Montréal, Québec
29. An T Horné, Everywhere
30. Zachary Hutchinson, Chicago, Illinois
31. jeepneys, L.A., California
32. Juniper, Montréal, Québec
33. Reena Katz, Ottawa, Ontario
34. Kesii by Ocean, Rosendale, New York
35. Juliana España Keller, Montréal, Québec
36. Kama La Mackerel, Montréal, Québec
37. Leanne Lapspace, Toronto, Ontario
38. Henry Lorca, Northern California
39. Damien Luxe and Jade Payne, Brooklyn, New York
40. Isabelle McGuire, Chicago, Illinois
41. Shelley Marlow, Brooklyn, New York
42. Merlin, Short Mountain, Tennessee
43. Hannah Morrow, Montréal, Québec
44. Ricardo Nelson, New York, New York
45. Matthew-Robin Nye, Montréal, Québec
46. Alexis O’Hara, Montréal, Québec
47. Alvis Parsley, Toronto, Ontario
48. Jason Penney, St. John’s, Newfoundland
49. Kate Rhoades and Kelsey Thorne, Oakland, California
50. Lauren Riis, Des Moines, Iowa
51. Kale Roberts, Tampa, Florida
52. Tif Robinette, Roanoke/ New York
53. Mée Rose, Toronto, Ontario
54. Jamie Ross, Montréal, Québec
55. Morgan Sea, Montréal, Québec
56. Sequinette, Brooklyn, NY
57. Shayo, Montréal, Québec
58. Queen Sisyphus/ Eva Bloche, Boston, Massachusetts
59. Coral Short, Everywhere
60. Ariel Springfield, Oakland, California
61. Ali Terndrup and Beth Plakidas, Tampa, Florida
62. Franklin Toan, Richmond Virginia
63. Christine Thorne, Montréal, Québec
64. Hana van der Kolk, North Hampton, New Hampshire and Tomi Amsterdam, Netherlands, Olive McKeon, Oakland/LA, California, Blaine O’Neill, Troy, New York and Jane Pickett, L.A. California
65. Fjord Vox, San Francisco
66. Mona Wam, IDA, Tennessee
67. Michelle Wouters, Montréal, Québec
68. Quito Ziegler and Kristen Parker,  Brooklyn, New York
69. Pippi Zornoza, Providence, Rhode Island

 

 

WHERE IS CORAL SHORT NOW? TORONTO! SEATTLE! SAN FRANCISCO! MONTREAL! NEWFOUNDLAND!

Sasha Kleinplatz, a well known Montreal choreographer as well as the magical gaymous creature/ dancer/ choreographer Hana van der Kolk, and my platonic wife and stylist Christine Thorne created a piece specifically for In Your Pocket. This is my first time working with dancers which has been a long term goal/ dream of mine so I am extremely chuffed.

25 Queer Artists Come Together to Create Short Videos On Smart Phones. Curated by the amazing Marcin Wisniewski and Dupuis Christophe. Presented by the RT Collective as part of the Inside Out LGBT Film Festival in association with Videofag.

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Raphaele Frigon and I were very pleased to be selected for Translations: Seattle Transgender Film Festival in May as well:

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M.U.F.F.

I was busy Saturday at the Montreal Underground Film Festival with three of my new hit films: We Don’t Want to Marry, Genderless Jellyfish and All the Things. Thank you MUFF! Special thanks to the ever formidable Zoe Brown.

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Also in Montreal in avril I was pleased to present my brand new film The Party’s Over in french! at LANCEMENTS en présence des réalisatrices. Thank you GIV forever and always! ❤

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ALL THIS AND TWO SHOWS IN THE BAY IN JUNE!!!

Queer Prophecies: Future Visioning < click this link to see more about this amazing show curated by the one and only Noelle Duncan

Coral Short and Angela Gabereau (feminist hacker extraordinaire) present you with these multiple versions of the future. We are the mothers of “Future Visions” but everyone who has submitted videos is also an partial parent of this larger dynamic quilt of destinies. We hold the future together all of us with our everyday small actions and big daydreams. We all create our future queer worlds daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. We have released this varied futures from an uncensored open call and are holding multiple visions within our own piece. We gift you the viewer a smorgasbord of queer futures.

* * *

This is What I Want is a powerful new festival in San Francisco curated by Tessa Wills and Peter Max Lawrence. I am so happy that the films I made while living in Oakland are returning to where they were created! I made them while doing an artist residency a few years back when I lived there. These babies are now coming home to roost! Lesbian Hand Gestures and Narcissus

here’s me looking sharp on the site rocking the heterochromia with my new friend Hilary. photo by my BFF Tif Flowers:

* * *

Eastern Edge Newfoundland

So very pleased to announce my first performance art solo week which is part of a 3 part series. I will be doing a residency in the gallery sewing all week! I am expanding my piece The Insiders to fill a whole gallery full of textiles performativity! I will also walk the women’s path on Signal Hill at twilight inhabiting my Croning suit as well as enlivening the streets of St Johns on the weekend with Plush! Big thank you to Mary MacDonald for all her hard work and to Michelle Bush and Juls Generic for hostessing me!

* * *

When I get back from all of this it’s: Encuentro the wildest most epic festival I have been in since OPEN in Beijing! 750 performance artists from North and South America!!! I have two brand new works in the festival one called Nest and the other called Scream Choir – a collaboration with Sarah Wendt. JUST LOOK AT THIS LINE UP

Also in other news my curations are on fire!

OK Quoi?! Media Festival in Sackville New Brunswick JULY/ AUGUST

Le Petit Versailles with Troy Davis and Yvette Choy New York SEPTEMBER

#cantstopwontstop

 

 

 

IDA! deep in the wilds of Tennessee !

So I just finished my artist residency at IDA! Big thanks to Maxzine and Beef and all the amazing folks at IDA and beyond for hosting me (especially Eliza, Becca Raeleen, Emily, Merrill, Kassidy, Nadzia, Phil and Spree)

Finally I made it to the heart of rural queer and it seems I have left my heart there on the land! Back in NYC I feel like I have been wrenched from the queer womb. Also life out there reminded me so much of my hippy live-off-the land family it felt extremely right and full circle.

My residency was a time of nonstop creation! I finished 3 punk rock videos!

for my new lovely friend Annah Anti-Palindrome from Oakland

above video is for a sweet one in London England whom I have known for a decade. Len’s project is called Fagg*t

and

and

and

for the ever delicious Nicky Click…

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I also shot/ edited prophecies for Future Visions, my collaborative web based tarot card deck I am making with Angela Gabereau for Queer Prophecies for the National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco this summer. There is still time for you to submit your own prophecy to this dreamy futurist project.

My 1st video for  Queer Prophecies was shot at Dirt Palace of the witchy Pippi Zornoza. I am getting the hang of Audacity which is really fun.

And my second one! Of the magical Mona Wam traversing the creek at IDA

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THRONING CONSTRUCTION AND CREATION

by Coral, Troy, K and Laurence with the help of the IDA garden interns

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My heart friends fellow gardening Canadians K Laurence and Troy met me at IDA to help me build these beauties which you can sit in for Idapalooza or Work Hard Stay Hard (or whever you come visit IDA)

These artworks play an important function for forest dwellers or visitors. We welcome you to take a seat and relax. The thrones will grow greener and greener with each month as nature takes them back.  Wild plants that inhabit the thrones thus far: ferns, grasses, hepatica, trilliums, moss, honeysuckle, wild roses, sedums, euchre, dutchmen’s breeches (dicentra) clematis, creeping jenny (lysimachia)  We created structures with a lot of hard work then we harvested forest plants with Deklan, Cricket, DV, Marianne and then filled the earthen structures full of growing life.  These pagan chair-like structures can act as respites from long walks in the forest, city exhaustion, sore muscles from gardening or too much Idapalooza.  The thrones can act also as shrines to the impermanence of self – for in the end whatever age we are we all go back to the earth.  We can connect with the divine within ourselves sitting on these thrones of solace hidden across the land. I have been invited to come back to Ida to Work Hard Stay Hard and head the Monument team to create new large earth art structures !!!

There were 4 thrones and 4 of us

We invited everyone from all the queer lands around for a tour before we left…

Violet’s Throne is a collective throne dedicated to the beautiful Violet which eerily (without planning) fits all current residents of IDA.

The Femme/ Heart Throne is dedicated to Spree, Talka, Emily, J Dellacave and Becca Raeleen

Death Throne is dedicated to those we have lost.

Sober Throne is dedicated to all of us who strive to love ourselves substance free. It is dedicated to Eliza as she used to keep bees in that very same spot. We were informally asked to create this throne as Idapalooza wishes to change the direction of its festivals away from excessive alcohol use and towards a healthier safer space.

PROVIDENCE, NYC, MONTREAL, BERLIN, GRENOBLE, COLOGNE, NIJMEGAN!

☆彡 back to the east coast:

In New York I spent time with Sequinette Jaynesfield my new muse and artistic collaborator who I shot this new video portrait called kittenface with:

We plan on creating a series of collaborations together as our synergy is formidable! We have already planned about 5 new shoots.

So where am I now? Everyone is asking! I am living in the pirate nook in Dirt Palace with a black cat named Klaus. This bought and paid for building is a magically indescribable place full of queer feminist punk witch aesthetic but the photos below can give you an idea. I am very much at home here as my roots are deep in punk rock/ radical politics since my teenage years. I have faith that all paths have led me to this place. I had a feeling in my gut to go to Gabfestry with Damien last August and the people I met there have brought me here. These days I am all about following my gut instead of my mind.  I have been happily editing in the cozy library here. This mythical art building used to be an actual library and these are the original shelves.

Here’s where I drink my coffee in the morning. It’s just like a European Squat!!! but in North America which is an enchanting surprise for me.

Dirt Palace has hit me deep in my soul. I can’t think of a place that suits me better in all of North America – funny how it was hidden away at the end of all these punk legends/ treasure maps waiting for me for almost 15 years.  I am so grateful to all the strong women who put their energy into this project to keep this collective healthy and vibrant.

Here in the library I have created three new music videos – all for musicians I care about deeply/ respect:

From Oakland: Annah Anti-Palindrome – archive of memory

Hand actor: Pippi Zornoza Mother of Dirt Palace

From London UK:  Fagg*t – Bad Facebook Day

This video helps us process our complex relationship with Facebook! Here is a still from the process of 8 point garbage matte, video screen capping (in the eyes) and key framing. Big thanks to Nosh from Digital Desperados for helping me figure out all these tricks on skype screen share! Gaymous North American celebrities you can catch if you watch fast enough: Marty Fink, Lucas Crawford, Kriz, Heather Achs, Damien Luxe, Sequinette, Alvis Choi, Silas Howard and Sabina Ibarrola! Up soon on 52 pick up!

And last but not least thee unstoppable Nicky Click‘s Fuckmachine shot last summer at CMD in Montreal which is totally inspired by the A-ha video of my youth:

For Nuit Blanche in my heart city of Montreal one of my best 52 pick ups will screen at Studio 303 curated by the one and only Dayna McLeod for EDGY REDUX

☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆彡☆

And across the Atlantic Ocean I have five upcoming European Screenings at four festivals!

At the end of February Tunnel Vision will screen in Berlin at the Vaginale curated by Mascha Nehls from the Entzaubert archives. How I miss Berlin! I will see you all next winter.

Narcissus and Lesbian Hand Gestures continue to be ever popular in Europe and are screening in April at: Grenoble International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (France) I love the way my films are going to places I have never been!

Narcissus is also doing another Amsterdam Trans Film Festival Screening in Nijmegan the oldest city in the Netherlands on March 15.

But finally my new films are getting some play! In April – Genderless Jellyfish and We Don’t Want to Marry are playing at the Frauen Film Festival in Cologne – Germany’s fourth-largest city.

Thanks again to my besties Nosh Khwaja and Mascha Nehls for helping me to create these ultra gay radical pieces.  Together we keep the international ball of queer culture rolling, gaining magical strength as we go!

WE ARE ALL CONNECTED

LIVING THE DREAM: SOCIALIZING & COLLABORATING ON THE WEST COAST

One thing I am really good at is conversation. I love people! I love my communities! I adore networking, socializing, investigating the international queer/ feminist art world and its cultural production. And this winter has been full of just that as I meander my way around North America. When I meet talented gems in various cities I love to curate them, get inspired by them and introduce them to each other to further the ever quickening evolution of queer culture. It is really what I naturally excel at and I thank the goddess as well as my enthusiastic and cheerful Irish-American mother from L.A and my charming kind father from London, England for this blessing.

I encourage you to click on all these links to find out about cultural production in various parts of North America!

In Vancouver I had the honor of spending time with my mentor and role model Margaret Dragu who taught me so much about living a life long sustainable feminist art practice. I was also delighted to enter some of my video work within her video quilt at the Richmond Art Gallery. I got to have a personal gallery tour there with Jenny Craig and Heidi Nagtegaal from the Hammock Residency. Heidi and I have curated each other for a few years now in various cities and we continue to support each others’ spiritual and artistic growth. On new years day I had the pleasure of hanging out with some of my favorite curators/ art organizers Amy Nugent from The Banff Centre for the Arts, Amy K from the Audain Gallery and Teresa Sudeyko from Access Gallery – how have my best Vancouver friends turned into such powerhouses? So proud of them!

In the Bay Area, I also got to hang out with fellow curators Zeph Fish, Malic Acid, Lex Non Scripta, Lisa Ganser, KB Boyce, and Celeste Chan all people I am deeply inspired by not only for their curatorial practice but also for their own strong individual cultural production. I got to shoot this video of the interior of Lex’s miniature house where I also stayed in Oakland. Thanks Lex and all of the darlings at Darlington House for being so wonderful and welcoming. I am excited to collaborate with annah anti palindrome lending her my psychedelic craft and crystal videos projected for her live music.

I had the pleasure of short exciting inspirational hang outs with infamous Mev Luna  and legendary Nomy Lamm as well as getting to see the marvelous Seeley Quest a few times! I also had the pleasure of attending Jai Carrillo‘s show curated by Irwin Swirnoff.  A highlight of my bay area time was the honor of being the video documentor for Femina Potens‘ Askew Film and Performance Festival and meet Midori as well as the curator Madison Young who I got to interview for Dykes on Mics back in Montreal. I was deeply moved by my interactions with Midori and Madison and the wisdom they shared with me. I also got to see my new Gabfestry friend Aorta who did a powerful sonic and visual display of witchery on stage.

In San Francisco I got to magically mindmeld with Mark McBeth about his phenomenal documentation practice which I perceive to be the largest queer performance archive done by one person ever (?) I have about ten major international cities which I consider “home” and large networks of active queers in those cities but I could be wrong!  I also had the delight to meet up with another of my favorite magical cisfag video artists Jody Jock about a new show I am curating in New York in the fall with Yvette Choi. More details on that to be released shortly.

Other exciting projects in San Francisco I came across were Black Hole Cinema– 16mm film curation by Tooth that I attended with Malic, the new Counterpulse space (with so much potential – 3 levels of cinema, work space and artist residencies!) that I attended a Community Forum on Performance Documentation at and the Fresh Festival curated by my friend Ernesto Sopprani where I got to see an old Queeruption aquaintance Anna Martine Whitehead dance so hard and so beautifully!

At my favourite punk rock house I was staying at in West Oakland I shot Cock Coven with the help of Emma Deboncoeur and my new awesome friend Ari PerezDiez.  The background music is Bonedust (an experimental witch noise band) from Dirt Palace at Providence, Rhode Island who at the time we created this animation was unbeknownst to me, but I am here now in Providence and have a big friend crush on the powerful wild witchy woman Pipi herself – the mother of Dirt Palace.

Emma and I also shot Anger from the top floor of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.  This is a deep and personal straight from the heart piece – another step in my move towards collaborative video portraiture within my beloved queer kinship structures.

My very last afternoon in Oakland was a deeply beautiful and moving one. My new friend Ida Thistle (a licensed Phlebotomist with 200 hours of experience) drained 3 vials of blood out of me while Sally played live violin loops. Then her and Sally (Thunder Thighs and A Thimble of Light) did a surprise private show for me and camera woman Sarolta Jane Cump using glassware and water, honey and my blood projected on the wall with an overhead projector. It was so so so amazing.

***I would like to thank Canada Council for awarding me a travel grant this winter. It’s my first successful grant for several years so I am so deeply grateful to continue on in residencies at Dirt Palace and Ida without any money worries.

I would also like to thank Vancouver and the Bay for generously hosting me especially Hugs, Jen and Andy, Sir, Lex, Dana, Lisa and Nomy, and Emma and Francesca.

Stay tuned for new projects in the witch castle I am currently living in! Will post again soon.

★ ★ ★ 9 months of 52 pick up ★ ★ ★

so as many of you know i have dedicated hours/ days/ weeks of my life to this amazing project 52 pick up run by the lez powerhouse dayna mcleod in montreal. if you haven’t had a gander around the sight at all the other artists present and past do so you will be amazed! better than netflix! i can’t believe by the time spring rolls around i will have completed a year of making videos every week.  truly amazing the steep learning curves through experimentation and teenage boys on youtube teaching me new techniques.

lately i am very pleased with my new video called Juniper. this video speaks to the underrepresented canadian west coast wilderness femme. i have witnessed this handsome creature grow into her own power with each passing year. this video is an ode to long femme hair and connections to nature / the web of life. this tender shebeast hails from the sunshine coast but inhabits montreal.  i would like to thank the hugs hotel for the amazing faux tapestry backdrop and accommodation during our stay in vancouver.

i continued my green screen obsession by experimenting with a figurine which i put it into outer space to create le voyage de la licorne this unicorn was a gift (due to my past work with unicorns) from life mentor tara robertson who got it from the formidable morgan brayton – it was the unicorn of her mother who passed 7 years ago. i would like to thank sir backs for his patient editing help on this.

i have also been working on video performances with my mouth about holding and releasing. the first was untamed which was shot with my laptop camera. untamed was a catalyst for this oral series. i shot it when my computer crashed and i lost final cut for a while which forced me to work in new ways.

the party is over is a curator favorite. thank you to carly bee, leanne lapspace, emmett outlaw and mee rose in toronto for their keen editing eyes on this to help me choose the right timing and sickly shade of green. this piece touches on personal thresholds and sobriety.

Looking quite sickly, the film maker finds herself throwing up on camera. Metaphorically this film speaks to the release of toxic things in your life. Sometimes the party is just over!  With a nod to over-saturated gay aesthetic and with an ample dose of dry wit the artist creates a satisfying ritualistic release.

arrangement was also very popular with the curators and also on my facebook fanpage.

Working with the beauty of excess – the performance artist has created a personal moment for the audience with an immense bouquet of flowers. Playing on the double meaning of the word “arrangement” the artist alludes to the unspoken and sometimes difficult arrangements we make inter-personally in the queer community. This flowery performance unfolds a slow humorous bodily transformation which leads to a somewhat surprising and tender outcome.

i did work with another mouth –  molly caudle’s mouth in the video clover which screened in bristol as part of a fund raising effort ‘the film that bought the cinema’ curated by lady lucy an artist friend since ladyfest scotland in 2001. and good news! they did buy the cinema! nosh and i loved performing weekend hairport and attilla here in the mid 2000s.

my collaboration with Wai-yant Li was super successful in that it had its world premiere at MIX NYC and as a result got picked up by the Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre! It was also super fun to make and we are talking about making an underwater creature one next!

18 handmade entities with big personalities meet and interact for the first time with a variety of emotions. A hand enters the shot occasionally deconstructing the craft magic of stop animation

my best friend/ art partner in Glasgow of Digital Desperados favorite vid of the year is gay kittens stolen from internets! it is very weird and i made it very late at night at the hugs hotel in vancouver hopped up on skittles and perrier. it’s also about my favorite: gay excess aesthetic. if this ever gets into any screening i am going to edit even more kitten eyes into it! mewww!

another favorite one is me driving into personal freedom with the video unafraid which was shot from the van of Hadassah Damien on our way to Gabfestry last August at the Beehive Collective. this piece works with personal narrative as did one of my first vid: leaving and all the things (unavailable online)

and last but not least one of my favorites to make and edit with my dear friend shayo who i will be working with on new projects with during the upcoming year.  there’s nothing more radical than feminist queer collaboration in two languages! here’s us hanging upside down from an airplane. lol. shayo is the reason behind all these greenscreens i have become obsessed with as she painted a whole wall in her house green! we are doing greenscreen projects together all year in new ways.