Posted by wayves volunteer 13/02/2014
In 2013, as part of The Turret Resurrection at the Khyber Centre, the NSCAD Queer Collective's carefully reconstructed an original 1977 work by Rand Gaynor and of the graffiti'd response from women in the community (See Editor's note below).
From the Khyber Centre for the Arts
The Khyber Centre for the Arts is excited to announce the launch of its book, OUT: Queer Looking, Queer Acting Revisited at the Parentheses Gallery & Art Projects at 2186 Gottingen Street in Halifax at 7 - 9 p.m. on Friday, February 14.
The book is edited by noted curator and activist, Robin Metcalfe and includes essays by Metcalfe and several other well-known activists. The publication will reproduce the original catalogue from the 1997 MSVU exhibition Queer Looking, Queer Acting: Lesbian and Gay Vernacular, including a main essay that constitutes the most complete social history, to date, of the emergence and first quarter century of Queer activism in Halifax. Jane Kansas reflects on coming out as lesbian in rural Nova Scotia, and James MacSwain contributes a film- and videography of local Queer cinematic production up until 1997. For this second edition, contemporary activist Rebecca Rose traces a personal account of Queer activism in Halifax in the second decade of the 21st century, emphasising the growing visibility of transgender or trans* activism within the Queer movement and NSCAD Queer Collective’s Beck Gilmer-Osborne and Genevieve Flavelle share an account of their experience with the Collective and the Turret Resurrection. The book is at once a celebration of the past, an important social and historical documentation, and a passing of the proverbial baton.
The book constitutes part of a larger project by the same name that celebrates the early history of Queer activism in Halifax and its evolution since the 1970s. The project is organised in collaboration with the NSCAD Queer Collective and supported by the Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Project (NSRAP) and brings together the elders of the movement with the younger Queer generation.
The exhibition of ephemera, originally scheduled to open on January 31 was postponed when HRM shut down the Church of England Institute Building that housed the Khyber Centre for the Arts (Khyber) due to the presence of asbestos traces. However, the Khyber has decided to proceed with the project in different locations around the city.
The project is made possible through a grant by the Province of Nova Scotia through the Department of Community, Culture and Heritage, donations from Venus Envy, Drala Books & Gifts, and McInnes Cooper, as well as private donors.
The Khyber, established in 1995, is a non-profit, artist-run centre. It presents contemporary art exhibitions, artist lectures, panel discussions and performances, and offers art classes to youth.
Editor's Note: In the first printing of OUT in 1977, Robin Metcalfe wrote of the fate of the original mural: "Women in GAE hated it . They complained that the image was sexist. "male-identified" — a gay male rather than a lesbian conception of love between women. They derisively dubbed it ' “Tits ‘n’ Lipstick,” ' and the name stuck. The Board hemmed and hawed … until a group of frustrated women … took matters into their own hands and defaced the mural, spray painting it with women’s symbols and slogans such as ‘ “Keep Your Hands of [sic] my Sexuality” ‘ and ‘ “ This is a Crime Against Women!” … In the end the mural was simply painted over, and presumably still exists, entombed with its angry feminist graffiti under twenty years of paint.” - (excerpted from the 1997 Edition of OUT: Queer Looking, Queer Acting by Robin Metcalfe, published by Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery).
