Dayna McLeod is a Montréal-based performance artist and video maker… and she’s very funny. Winner of many prizes and awards, her work speaks to the masses with rare and powerful humour rooted in visionary feminist politics. It’s very likely that you’ve seen Dayna, but didn’t even know it: she embodies her message everywhere and in every way–from her infamous Santa Beaver to her newer (picture on the right) Monarchy Mama–her art travels far and wide.
[Interview by Mél Hogan for ArtThreat]
AT: Hi Dayna.
So, it's all about tits lately, isn't it?
Dayna: Totally.
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Posted by Mél Hogan on September 19, 2007 in
Loree Erickson's short film Want explores issues surrounding sex, sexuality and disability, as well as the difficulties in navigating the world at large. During the last six years, Erickson has had most of her care provided by a rotating collective of friends and community members after dealing with sex-negative attitudes from some professional care attendants in addition to difficulty finding funding for care.
Contrasting discriminatory attitudes towards the sex lives of disabled people, Want opens with explicit scenes of Erickson and her partners, but the film also includes more mundane activities like navigating supermarkets and public transit. Showing sexuality as another aspect of being able to live a full life, not something that should be relegated to a minor concern (if it is included within a full understanding of disabled people's lives at all) makes Want a deliciously dirty documentary.
The scenes here are accentuated with Erickson's own voice over, which speaks out her desires, and lands somewhere between plaintive requests and outright demands. Erickson may want to be the girl you fuck, but she also wants to be the girl you respect. If her activism and work within the area of disability and sexuality isn't enough to get you there, then the vision of her fucking by an open window with her head thrown back in delight ought to do the trick. Her own goals of “replac(ing) the gawking, gazing and glaring people with disabilities encounter on a daily basis with beholding, recognizing and reacting when people with disabilities are red fucking hot” are thoroughly confirmed here.
Want screens as part of Toronto's Inside Out Lesbian and Gay Film Festival on May 25th. Erickson is also launching a photography exhibit, Revealing Femmegimp, at Come as You Are in Toronto running from June 4th to July 31st, in addition to organizing Reclaiming the Gaze: A performance Evening Exploring Desire and Disability at Tallulah's Cabaret (11 Alexander St., Toronto) on July 21st.
Topping off all of this sexiness is Acsexxxable, an accessible sex party currently being planned for August. If you'd like to help out planning for this, email monstergrrrl@gmail.com, and email Loree at femmegimp@hotmail.com for more information about her work or to book or purchase artwork or films.
Posted by Alison Lee on May 24, 2007 in
On Saturday April 21st at 7pm there will be the Montreal Launch for "Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith, & Sexuality" (in the York Amphitheatre (EV 1.615) at Concordia University, located at 1515 St. Catherine St. West). The launch will feature readings and discussion by contributors, Shadi Eskandani and Nuzhat Abbas, followed by a book signing.
Nuzhat Abbas is a writer based in Toronto, Canada . She was born in Zanzibar , educated in Karachi and immigrated to Canada in 1981. On receiving Canadian citizenship, she promptly left to work in Spain, Turkey , and the UK , and later studied for several years in the US. She returned to Toronto in 1999 and since then, she has published literary non-fiction, reviews and poetry in Fuse, THIS magazine, CV2, Herizons , the Globe and Mail as well as Znak (inPoland). At present she is working on a novel as well as a book of essays about Zanzibar. She has taught literature at Ryerson, OCAD and George Brown College and currently works as an educator and consultant on anti-oppression, human rights and equity issues.
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Posted by Mél Hogan on April 18, 2007 in
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