Those of us whom spent my youth in the united states when you look at the 1960s and 70s lacked art, Bible tales, and history as universal sources. The tome that shaped our values most tangibly had been the emporium catalogue, a wish guide of everything we might have and whom we’re able to be when it was got by us. Gender ended up being demonstrably defined, competition ended up being single, and course had been center. The most-read book of our Canadian youth in this performance we use the tableau form to enact a page from the Eaton’s catalogue. We now have paired women’s formals (a appearance we now have had trouble effectively fitting into) with restroom plumbing system to invoke the bounty that is endless cleanliness and hope that the catalogue implied. Three ladies stay in vacant stillness, water streaming through the spouts at their breasts.
Duration: The 15 moment performance is duplicated twice one hour
First performed: March 1998, Hallwalls Centre for modern Art, Buffalo, nyc. Afterwards performed at Counterposes, Montreal, curated by Jennifer Fisher and Jim Drobnick.
Astroart area Corps
Commanders Dempsey and Millan are getting ready to enter deep area, to produce revisionist stellar cartography and explore the resistant character of anti-matter.
First performed: September 2014, Los Angeles Nuit Blanche, Calgary, Alberta
Photos by Lindsey Bond
Big Wig
The revolting additionally the revolutionary, the reviled together with revered are united by mature amature sex locks in this time travelling sing-along. Through the wigged ladies of Ancient Rome towards the hirsute levels of seventeenth century France to those really hairy 1960s: the world’s many infamous queen traces the annals of radical tresses while thinking democracy.
“we want personal revolution. I would like to conserve package tops, and purchase one in the mail. I would like anachronism and misconception, plus the anachronistic misconception that things gets better. I would like to be pretty and only a little tragic, yet not too tragic for the reason that it will make me personally dead. “
Duration: 35 min.
First done: June 2017 Queer City Cinema Camp, Trash, Filth event in Regina, Saskatchewan, curated by Gary Varro
Revised: November 2017 Isolated Landscapes in Winnipeg, Manitoba, curated by Kathy Rae Huffman
Photos By Karen Asher and Anita Lubosch
The Dress Series
The Dress Series (1989-1996), a team of performances that explore the gown since the female ceremonial costume and icon of femininity. During these pieces, fabric is changed by not likely materials, producing juxtaposition, brand brand brand brand new definitions and upending expectations. All costumes fabricated by Dempsey and Millan.
The pro/antagonist defends herself against racial and economic difference by clothing herself in the domestic architecture of the times: the house/dress is her shimmering, clean fortress and her prison in Arborite Housedress. Through the entire piece she reveals her worries (such as for instance gravity, or driving a car that “parts of my dangerously sagging self might land in bad neighborhoods”) and her dreams (border city romances, getting straight down with dust, in addition to reduction of her household, so she’s going to have enough time to devote by herself more completely to being truly a homemaker). The wearable sculpture/costume has been exhibited at numerous free galleries and has now been bought because of The Winnipeg memorial as an element of their permanent collection.
“Have you ever pointed out that in the event that you clean the ground each morning, by nightfall it appears to be simply the just like just before began? Them again that you can do all of the dishes, and in a matter of hours someone has gone and dirtied? That young ones are small grime magnets, picking right up all method of stubborn spots and bringing them house once more? Well, I Am thinking. It would effectively cut might work load by 60%. If i possibly could be rid of my family, ”
The Dress: lumber, laminate, chrome home equipment, screws, fabric, Velcro.
Duration: 25 moments
First performed: 1994, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Alberta february
Photos by Sheila Spence
In Glass Madonna the world-weary mom of Jesus proffers wry advice and sage warnings from behind her stained cup gown. Fashioned such as for instance a two-dimensional carnival cutout with holes on her arms and mind, the gown is just a colourful and explicit rendering associated with Virgin Mary’s familiar apparel, with a unique peek-a-boo panel of clear cup to show the basis associated with Madonna’s fame: her 2000 hymen that is year-old. Inside her never-the-same-twice visitations, Mary commentary on love, service, therefore the guys inside her life.
“When he comes for your requirements on a dream-filled evening, delivers their angels to honk their horn at your door, don’t be home. ”
The Dress: stained cup, leading, patina, oak, stain, equipment
Duration: 20 moments
First performed: February 1994, Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre when it comes to Arts, Banff, Alberta (developed from earlier in the day performance piece The Plaster Virgin, 1992)
Photo The Banff Centre
In Object/Subject of Desire t he main element that is visual this performance is a big ball dress, made out of crisp white paper, similar to a debutante dress. Translucent and stiff, delicate yet unyielding, the gown rustles noisily as Dempsey moves and talks.
The many complexities of desire are discussed, including the many ways desire can be negated within this costume. The purity and purity for the gown, the available expression of “wanting”, and also the sweetness of distribution, together create an presumption that the thing of love talked about may be the conventional partner that is heterosexual. Nonetheless, these social presumptions are confronted throughout the section that is last of piece, as she finally, clearly, reveals the carnality of her wish to have an other woman.
“i would like you, to wish me personally. I really want one to wish me personally, also though I do not really would like you. I do not wish you after all, but i’d like everyone to. I would like everyone to desire you, but I do not would like one to wish someone else but me personally. All i’d like can be your want. ”
The Dress: vellum, packing tape, Velcro
Duration: five minutes
First performed: Red Deer university, Alberta, December 1988 (previously variation done in 1987 before Dempsey started collaboration with Millan)
Picture by Lorri Millan
The performer wears an iconic wedding gown, the classic raiment of femininity, virginity and promise in Plastic Bride. Nonetheless, the gown’s meant meaning is changed by its construction, from veil to teach, of clear plastic. The materials encases the bride suggesting more medical recommendations to human body bags and medical specimens, or commodities bagged and presented to buy. Disturbing, dream-like and funny, love and fashion, desire and denial are done in the gown’s unforgiving folds.
“You have actually gone shopping with a buddy, your cousin if not your mother that is own been told, ‘It’s ideal. It really is you. It is a knockout, ’ only to discover later on that it is a funeral, maybe not a marriage. It is July, perhaps perhaps not December. You’re a nurse, perhaps perhaps not an aviator. ”
The Dress: clear vinyl, fishing line, buttons
Duration: 20 mins