{"id":6947,"date":"2020-11-05T19:14:03","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T23:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chmafm.com\/welcome\/?p=6947"},"modified":"2020-11-07T11:35:24","modified_gmt":"2020-11-07T15:35:24","slug":"fruit-salad-features-queer-and-gender-nonconforming-art-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chmafm.com\/welcome\/fruit-salad-features-queer-and-gender-nonconforming-art-online\/","title":{"rendered":"“Fruit Salad” features queer and gender-nonconforming art online"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Seamus
S\u00e9amus Gallagher, Thinking of You, Thinking of Me, <\/em>2019 (image: Umbrella Projects<\/a>). <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fruit Salad: A Series of Queer and Gender-Nonconforming Videos & Performances is available for viewing online.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project is a collaboration between Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Centre, otherwise known as Umbrella Projects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an essay written by the co-curators<\/a> Hannah Bridger, Emily Falvey, and Lucas Morneau, the project is described as \u201ca m\u00e9lange of videos and filmed performances that explore gender performativity and celebrate masquerade, personas, and other fluid forms of identity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-curator and director of the Owens Art Gallery Emily Falvey says Fruit Salad is a passion project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emily Falvey:<\/strong> I was part of a curatorial team made up of myself, Lucas Morneau, and Hannah Bridger. I would say that the project originated with me, in the sense that I knew that I wanted to do some programming in the fall around the idea of drag, costume, and persona, because it’s an interest of mine. I also felt like that would be something that would appeal to students. That was political without being really heavy, that it could be fun and joyful. I was kind of looking for somebody to do that with because I’m a straight person, I didn’t feel like it was correct for me to curate a program looking at gender-[nonconforming] and queer performance. I was looking around for someone to work on this with me. At that time, Struts Gallery hired Lucas to work at Faucet, and he was moving to Sackville. I said, \u201cOh, there’s the perfect person.\u201d So I reached out to him, and he was really excited about this idea, obviously. He has a really fantastic knowledge base. So we just basically sat down for a minute and were like, \u201cThis is an artist I like\u201d and \u201cThis is what I like\u2026\u201d and we just bounced those names back and forth and started a conversation. Then when Hannah started working here in September, we brought her in. It was a really great working dynamic between the three of us. Sometimes curating in a group can be difficult, but I personally felt we all synced up really well and brought different things to the program.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meg Cunningham:<\/strong> Okay, what excites you about this project?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EF:<\/strong> Everything. I’ve had this long standing interest in alter egos, drag, and performance and the intersection between these things and visual art. I wanted to do an exhibition about this for a really long time. So in some ways, this project is kind of like an amuse-bouche or something before for a larger project that I’d like to do someday. I learned about some really interesting [things] like Tom Rubnitz I didn’t know anything about, Lucas brought that to the project. I\u2019m really excited about his work. I like how inclusive it is, how it’s critical without being dour and depressing. I find it uplifting, I find it creative and enjoyable. Everything that I wanted it to be, it turned out to be that thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n