The Unrelenting, 2022, Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer, The Schwules Museum, Berlin, 2022, Curated by Brigit Bosold and Kenny Fries
and
The Unrelenting, 2014, That's so Gay:On the Edge, June 20-24, 2014 Curated by Syrus Marcus Ware
The black triangle was a badge used by the Nazis to label, shame, segregate and persecute a large and diverse group of people. People who were deemed nonconforming, inconvenient, undesirable and unproductive. This is an homage to all of us who are a part of this posse. While many of us who would have been marked by this badge then, may find pride, alliance and community now, there are those of us whose deaths are still rationalized. Today, many of us face being criminalized, pushed out of gentrified neighborhoods, or coerced into dying. Even protecting our lives from deadly viruses is seen by many as too inconvenient. By reclaiming this symbol let us affirm both our valuable place in this community and our unrelenting accountability to each other.
Update: Shots at the Gay Museum February 28, 2023
“On the morning of February 24, administrative employees found out that an attack had taken place on the Gay Museum in Berlin-Tiergarten. Two window panes, the neon sign and a work of art in front of the front door were damaged. It is not known exactly when the shots were fired. However, it is assumed that the crime happened at night. The Gay Museum filed a complaint against an unknown person. The forces of the Berlin police examined the scene of the crime and secured evidence. The amount of the damage is not yet known.
Six bullet points were found on the front of the house. The windows to the reception area were damaged in four places and the neon sign in one place. A piece of art above the front door was also hit by a shot. It is a black felt triangle made for the current exhibition Queering the Crip, Cripping the Queer”
“The problem is not that I cannot walk. The problem is that I find myself living in a society which is premised in the most fundamental ways upon the assumption that everyone, or everyone that matters, does walk, in that quaint if rather laborious, biped sort of way. “ - Catherine Frazee
My focus for the last 12 years has been centred in arts accessibility, Deaf and disability arts and contemporary curatorial practice. During this time, my own visual arts practice was very quiet. In large part because the work I knew how to make didn’t feel relevant anymore. It didn’t speak to my own experiences of disability, and I didn’t fully know how to make work, that was premised, in the most fundamental way, on the assumption that a much broader range of audeince mattered.
The premise of audeince that my artistic practice was based on, had to shift.
In 2019 I was awarded a two-year Chalmers Art Fellowship, through the Ontario Arts Council, to radically reconsider how I make visual art, and shift the premise of who it is made for. From 2019- 2021 I will be researching, exploring, experimenting with and learning about the ways that artists, and specifically Deaf artists and artists with disabilities integrate collaborative design, accessibility and multi-sensory techniques into their artistic practice, while also creating dynamic and interesting works of art that explore lived experiences.
Session 1: Artscape Youngplace, Toronto
Unlimited Edition is an ongoing interactive work that invites visitors to collaborate with me to make an unlimited edition of soft sculptures and abstract gestures. I designed this work to be as inclusive and accessible as possible. I provide a low raised platform, several large pieces of coloured wool felt. I engage each collaborator one at a time, and invite them to manipulate these materials into their own unique sculpture. Collaborators may incorporate their own bodies, their friends, myself or simply the materials presented to create the work. Each work is numbered, titled, and the names of both collaborators recorded. Once the work is complete, I document the work, and my collaborator is invited to do the same with their own device. #unlimiteded
May 24 to June 19, 2012
Trinity Art Gallery, Salon A, Shenkman Arts Centre, Ottawa
Selection of work
2011-2009
