Black and queer communities flooded Arts Court in downtown Ottawa last month to celebrate intersectionality with two multidisciplinary art exhibits.
The early February vernissage, an ode to Black History Month and Ottawa’s Winter Pride festivities, spearheaded the undercurrents theatre festival organized by the Ottawa Fringe Festival.
In one room, Capital Pride and the Ottawa Trans Library curated a colourful display of visual art pieces submitted by over 50 artists.
Next door, music rattled through the walls inviting spectators to immerse themselves in under the q’urrent, a multidisciplinary exhibit curated by Lucille Giwa-Amu and Olivia Onuk.
For Giwa-Amu, their Canadian curatorial debut was about merging artistic creation with community building.
“My curatorial statement focused on the people in the background that make the waves, the people in the background that aren’t often recognized,” they said. “I feel so full because it did what it needed to do.”
The Fringe team anticipated about 40 people attending the under the q’urrent talkback panel later in the evening. To their surprise, the room quickly filled with more than 90 people closely gathered to hear each artist’s story.
As the panel’s moderator, Giwa-Amu also hailed calls to action. They said that now more than ever, the arts communities must unite to compensate for arts funding cuts at all three levels of government over the last three years.
They added that immigrants and diverse or niche artists like those in the ballroom scene are most impacted by these cuts. They face tight constraints while navigating the arduous funding application process.
Despite this, the display of painted canvases, the music and film creations documented the community’s persistent resilience.
For one of the featured artists, Aly McDonald, the vernissage was a rare opportunity to showcase their intersectional identity through their painting.
“I find with a lot of exhibits that I’ve been in so far, it’s been like Black artist or queer artist and it’s really something special to have both encapsulated into one,” she said.
McDonald’s fauvist and expressionist styles of painted figure work and nudes explore intersectionality and challenge common narratives about bodies.
Her art encompasses mental illness, emotions and healing.
It also expresses “Black body, queer body, fat body and trying to go against the over-sexualization of femme- and feminine-presenting bodies,” they said. “Because in this world, our bodies are everything but ours.”
She takes great care to encourage this philosophy in the artistic workshops she facilitates at the Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre.
For McDonald, the curation and positive community response was like stepping into their power because she didn’t have to hide any parts of herself.
A group of artists from the Ottawa Trans Library’s curation, Tuesday Taylor-York, Ari Tantos and Kat Farrell, expressed a similar sense of fulfillment.
“There’s all these people in this room and we might have some similar experiences and we might not, but we all have queerness in common,” said Taylor-York, who described the event as “surreal.”
The trio submitted two poems by Taylor-York, each accompanied by a vivid, digital visual evoking common experiences and emotions within the community.
As non-binary and gender-fluid artists, they resonated with Taylor-York’s poem, Enclosure, which explores transitioning gender identities.
“What I was envisioning was a person, in a female body, whether they currently identify as female, non-binary, whatever, and the ‘he’ that is referenced throughout the poem is the identity of a man,” they said. “The poem talks about the ‘he’ trying to escape — gnawing at the bars of enclosure, trying to get out.”
They were also drawn to the difficult experience of not being heard and accepted by others conveyed in the second poem, I’m Talking to You. They adapted the piece to reflect the experience of being dismissed while coming out.
Farrell’s first visual is of someone in the passenger seat of a car. York-Taylor said this came to fruition from each artist having come out in that locale.
“To be able to share that experience and the feelings depicted in the poetry and the art, it was very personal and very raw,” they said. “We all trust each other so much to be able to talk about these things, and trust the entire community to be able to put it out there.”
