Open Space artist-run centre presents Queer Futurities: holding area, gathering place, which is on now until July 23.
Queer Futurities, uses a variety of artistic mediums to ask, “How do we want to hold and be held? What do we want our communities to feel like?” Using queer polyvocality as a framework for world-building, Queer Futurities aims to create fissures in hegemonic ways of thinking about time, place, archive and community. Queer Futurities engages the generative possibilities of collective knowledge and care, creating an exhibition in two parts: holding area and gathering place.
“I hope that this project will plant and nourish the seeds of queer relationality—both connecting us to one another, and to forms of knowledge and care which desire beyond our present,” says exhibition curator Dani Neira.
• holding area explores what José Esteban Muñoz calls the “forward-dawning” potentials of queerness; holding area creates a temporary but affective space which holds collective knowledge. Through a range of mediums, including audio-visual installation, textiles, beading, performance and painting, the artists’ works explore the tenderness and nuance of both “holding” and “queerness” through alternative forms of care, storytelling, commemoration and place/space-making. It features the works of Kitt Peacock, Edzi’u, Cassia Powell, Florence Yee, Arezu Salamzadeh, Margaret August, Nicole Mandryk, Romi Kim and Kendell Yan.
• gathering place activates Queer Futurities’ themes of collective knowledge and care through skill-sharing and community gathering outside of the gallery space with workshops and performances. Programming includes a weaving workshop by Estraven Lupino-Smith, a “Queer Calisthenics” performance by keiko Hart, and a mutual aid workshop by the Community Fridge.
Open Space is located at 510 Fort Street, on the second floor. Admission to the show is free, but donations are welcome.