Messy Babies and Mother-Monsters: Liz McCarthy’s Post-Natal Overload

Liz McCarthy: THE EXPECTANCIES. Roman Susan Art Foundation, Chicago, IL, February 2025. Installation view. Image courtesy of the artist and Roman Susan Art Foundation.

by Matt Morris

“I want more happy children in our country and I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them.”

–Vice President JD Vance,
            National March for Life Rally,
          Washington DC, 24 January 2025

“Won’t somebody please think of the children?!?”
                                                                        –Helen Lovejoy, The Simpsons

Liz McCarthy

THE EXPECTANCIES

Roman Susan Art Foundation

February 8, 2025 – March 1, 2025

Babies are messy—literally and symbolically. Conceptualizing infancy—not to mention reckoning with the material realities of reproduction, birth, and the various interdependencies denoted by the newborn body—is to attract a morass of projections and urgencies. These stem from intersecting or opposing frameworks for selfhood, society, power relations, affect, mortality, sentimentality, crime, and whatever other facile means with which the experiment of civilization attempts to apprehend the facts and meaning of life and death per se. Treacherous as these territories may be, Liz McCarthy’s recent exhibition THE EXPECTANCIES on view at Chicago’s Roman Susan Art Foundation delivers this collision of symbolic orders to the fore. The artist has installed an uneasy nursery populated by ceramic infants onto which all sorts of charged collected objects have been adhered, watched over by a group of impassive masks assembled from shards of bricks and solder. The sculptures are also functional, operating not only as vessels to hold and carry sign chains of identities materialized but also through an array of holes across the figures, they operate as musical instruments—whistles that McCarthy encourages audiences to activate and play.

In their approach to these forms and their referents, McCarthy excites the perversity of our societal tendency to overload such evidently helpless and vulnerable newborns with an excess of associations and so many pressures to represent/perform/identify. A non-exhaustive annotation in no particular order of babies vis-à-vis today: capacities for reproduction as biological determinism; miscarriages; access and rights to abortion; genders assigned at birth and subsequent debates around gender-affirming care for minors; parenting; the stigmas and systemic attacks lavished upon single parents, especially Black and Brown mothers; Down Syndrome, spina bifida, anencephaly; fort–da, Melanie Klein’s ‘good mother;’ D.W. Winnicott’s ‘good enough mother;’ filicides from Medea to Casey Anthony; ages of consent; puberty, Bat Mitzvahs, Bar Mitzvahs, quinceaneras, Peter Pan complexes, YA coming-of-age novels, psycho-sexual coming-of-age cinema; adult baby fetishes; Pizzagate conspiracy theories; and the bizarre spate of late nineteenth century deaths of infants and nannies that was eventually attributed to poisonous arsenic used in the fashionable green colored wallpapers of the period. Reconciling even this limited account of disorderly associations is a nightmare of free-floating signification; I am so self-conscious about what the points I do and don’t include here say about me as a childless cat queer. I don’t think Audre Lorde meant it this way, but after the fact of her claim that “We can learn to mother ourselves,” it now means that offspring or not we can all be bad parents.

Liz McCarthy. Ubermensch (II) Whistle, 2025. found infant superhero costumes and artist’s infant memento clothing on glazed porcelain with epoxy putty.
Image courtesy of the artist and Roman Susan Art Foundation.


McCarthy shares in the press materials that they were pregnant at the time the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and becoming a parent within that political landscape served as context for the impulse to build babies that are literally instrumentalized. The scrutiny and play with which they have approached babies as cultural signs serves as a basis for proposing queer/ed notions of selfhood as assemblages and always fragmentary. Ubermensch (II) Whistle, 2025, dresses a porcelain-and-epoxy putty figure in deconstructed elements of superhero costumes made for babies; the nearby Femme Frill 1987 (II) Whistle, 2025, is dressed in pink and white lace ruffles extracted from clothing the artist wore as a baby. These and other little bodies are displayed on lilac stands in a maternity-ward-cum-baby-store-showroom that offers whimsical and monstrous form to an ethical inquiry that perambulates around babies as signs within intricate political, psychological, erogenous, intergenerational, and materialist systems, while also inscribing a vocabulary of objects with tender reflections of the first years of parenthood. 


Liz McCarthy: THE EXPECTANCIES. Roman Susan Art Foundation, Chicago, IL, February 2025. Installation view. Image courtesy of the artist and Roman Susan Art Foundation.


Even reified into concrete sculptural form, patina, presentation, and use within McCarthy’s prone populace emphasize the always already and ongoing instability of even parent and child and family unit as roles. Scholar John D’Emilio has marked out a concise history of compulsory heterosexual reproduction and family unit as the primary means of production in the early US colonies: “The white colonists in seventeenth-century New England established villages structured around a household economy, composed of family units that were basically self-sufficient, independent, and patriarchal…Men and women needed the labor of children. Producing offspring was as necessary for survival as producing grain. Sex was harnessed to procreation.”[1] Thereafter, a confluence of economics, affect, manufacturing, and social progress sets in parallel the advances of capitalism and the social possibility of lives—homosexual or other others—divested from het norms, “Only when individuals began to make their living through wage labor, instead of as parts of an interdependent family unity, was it possible for homosexual desire to coalesce into a personal identity—an identity based on the ability to remain outside the heterosexual family and to construct a personal life based on attraction.”[2]

Liz McCarthy. Femme Frill 1987 (II) Whistle, 2025. Artist’s infant memento clothing and epoxy putty on glazed stoneware, detail view.
Image courtesy of the artist and Roman Susan Art Foundation.


It’s worth remembering that some of the most deeply held convictions about what babies and families are categorically have emerged only recently in the wake of modernity and industrialization. It is crucial then to understand that McCarthy here shows babies as constructs, upsetting a singular, efficient psychoanalysis of subject-object relations with figurative sculptures laden not only with the exchange values assigned to art within cultural economies, but also dimensions of use value in puncturing the ceramic infants’ genitals, nipples, and fists into mouthpieces for whistle play. What comes to mind for me are the contested relationships between persons, places, and things inflamed by what Peter-Paul Verbeek calls the ‘moralizing technologies’ of the ultrasound and other key medical practices during pregnancy and birth: “All of these technological mediations generate a new ontological status for the fetus. Ultrasound imaging constitutes the fetus as an individual person; it is made present as a separate living being rather than forming a unity with its mother, in whose body it is growing.”[3]

Liz McCarthy. Memory Worn Whistle. Various memento objects from the artist’s childhood collections and epoxy
putty on glazed community studio reclaim stoneware. 2025. Image courtesy of the artist and Roman Susan Art Foundation.


Often all the paternalistic presumptuousness, cultural debates, headlines, and orienting devices does reinforce perceived conditions of isolation. Yet this overlooks a priori interdependencies of all life outright that is so deftly evidenced by a life growing inside of a life to which it is intimately connected. Needing is one of the only conditions of the space between birth and death about which I feel certain, and it’s also so scary so much of the time. The babies McCarthy presents are inflected with all the pathos and vulnerability involved in need—in the flailing limbs, exposed intimacies, and collaged materials from a life of ID cards, hair clippings, childhood toys, crafts, costumes, and heirlooms, the artist lays totally bare the dangerous feeling too-muchness into which we are all born, and capacities for compassion and empathy for which that condition begs.

Analyst, artist, and my go-to thinker for the most sensitive and elaborate deconstructions of the maternal, Bracha L. Ettinger, maps the trauma and treacheries of needing, the risks of too little and too much, “Anxiety of abandonment and devouring [by the Ready-made mother-monster] digests and elaborates anxieties of being invaded, dominated and penetrated.”[4] Ettinger characterizes the ‘mother-monster’ as a phantasmatic scapegoat caretaker blamed for the sheer overwhelm of a world defined by ecological meltdown and governed by madness. McCarthy edges this tension to the precipice in the moments between picking up the baby whistle sculptures, ‘playing’ them by placing mouth to nubby mound genitalia and blowing, then putting these doll-like effigies down and walking away.

The meaning-full sculpted babies on display are complemented with several more elusive, abstract, and haunting Face Façade pieces: masks floated across walls and above doorways, composed from silver solder and broken pieces of Chicago common brick—a rough, gritty building material made from clay dredged from the city’s river that came into use following the Chicago Fires of the 1870s and were produced consistently until the early 1980s. In a body of work full of varied mementos and cultural artifacts, this brick perhaps most profoundly evokes the ways meaning and determination are inherited from the histories and other power structures that precede us. In the logic of these works, the self is never singular or independent, never the neoliberal ideal of an alienated unit of capital; rather, babies or subsequent adults who try to mask and repress their own unresolved infantile impulses are characterized most of all as unmanageable excess, both held and made to hold, performative, fantastical, and fragile in the face of immense, compounded forces that would seek to define. Contending with what artist and writer Lise Haller Baggesen describes as “that real feeling of containing and carrying somebody, of the whole oceanic interiority that entails,”[5] Liz McCarthy fosters a zone of objects and actions with which to comprehend what has been done and what is undone in the radical simultaneous operations of giving birth and being born.

[1] John D’Emilio. “Capitalism and Gay Identity.” The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 1993. Print, pp. 469.

[2] D’Emilio. “Capitalism and Gay Identity.” P. 470.

[3] Peter-Paul Verbeek. Moralizing Technology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Print, p. 24.

[4] Bracha L. Ettinger. “(M)Other Re-spect: Maternal Subjectivity, the Ready-made mother-monster and The Ethics of Respecting.” Studies in the Maternal, 2 (1), 2010. P. 18.

[5] Lise Haller Baggesen. “Mother of Pearl.” Mothernism. Chicago: Green Lantern Press, 2014. Print, p. 131.

Eternal Transcendent and Some kind of we

Robert Flack, Robert Flack: Eternal Transcendent, 2024-2025, installation view at the AGG. Curated by Dallas Fellini. Images by Toni Hafkenscheid.

Art Gallery of Guelph

Curated by Dallas Fellini

Robert Flack, B.G-Osborne [Oz], Benjamin Da Silva, Mirha-Soleil Ross,

Xanthra Phillippa MacKay, Cleopatria Peterson, and Daze Jefferies

By Mattea Schouten

Robert Flack emerged in the Toronto art scene in the early 1980s. His depictions of the human form grew increasingly mystical as the decade unfolded, gradually introducing acid colours and psychedelic patterns into his artistic process. Flack began depicting the image of a figure superimposed over flat tie-dye backdrops and floating through space, a development that marked the beginning of his interest in the metaphysical. Flack learned he was HIV-positive in 1988, a diagnosis that profoundly influenced his work in the years that followed. Between then and his death in 1993, Flack delved into spirituality as a means of imagining transcendence beyond his physical self and the systems that failed to provide the care he needed. Empowerment is Flack’s final body of work, a collection of photomontages that reflect the artist’s developing awareness of his mortality and his desire for something beyond the physical realm. Shown alongside an exhibition dedicated to films by transgender artists from two generations, Flack’s work communicates a broader narrative of queer inheritance, particularly in relation to the lasting influence of those lost to the AIDS epidemic.

As part of the Art Gallery of Guelph’s visible storage initiative, Flack’s series has been presented alongside four of the artist’s cibachrome prints in the Eternal Transcendent exhibition. The Empowerment series, which makes up a majority of the exhibition, is constructed of seven photographs. The images form a spiritual map of the human body, superimposing hand-drawn designs over photos of the seven energy centers along the spine. Flack’s cibachrome prints depict circular labyrinths overlaid on barely discernible micrographs, the visual contents obscured by Flack’s use of a highly magnified lens. Flack’s chakra portraits are presented in order from left to right and his cibachrome works are arranged around the series along a narrow hallway connecting the collection to its sister exhibition, Some kind of we.

Robert Flack, Ascent (Chakras), 1990-1991, colour, 103.5 cm x 79.4 cm. Purchased with assistance from the Ontario Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation and an anonymous donation, 1992. Macdonald Stewart Art Centre Collection at the Art Gallery of Guelph. Images by Toni Hafkenscheid.

Ascent (1990-91) is the first image from the series and displays the first chakra, representing safety and stability. Its location at the base of the spine is depicted in Flack’s photograph of a man’s backside. The photo is coloured in a rich purple and decorated with a multicoloured spiral design composed of dollar-store jewels. This image simultaneously speaks to Flack’s interest in spirituality, and to the gay community surrounding him. His undeniably queer representation of beauty and power in Ascent came at a time when public perception of gay men was still heavily stigmatized as a result of the AIDS crisis. Today, Ascent can be remembered as a bold and shameless response to the heteronormative culture which had denied Flack both safety and stability during the epidemic. Crown (1990-91) is the final piece from the Empowerment series. The image represents the seventh chakra, dedicated to spiritual transformation and a connection to the divine. Flack’s photomontage combines an image of the top of a man’s head, dark against a deep blue background, and a circular floral design hovering above it. Though this work is more ambiguous than others in the series, Crown is distinctly queer in its gender-bending combination of cropped hair, navy blue colouration and floral decoration. Crown is the closing statement of the series, encapsulating Flack’s interest in themes of enlightenment, divinity, and queer self-expression in a singular photo.

B.G-Osborne [Oz], Daze Jefferies, Benjamin Da Silva, Mirha-Soleil Ross, Xanthra Phillippa MacKay, Cleopatria Peterson, Some kind of we, 2024-2025, installation view at the AGG. Curated by Dallas Fellini. Images by Toni Hafkenscheid.

Down the hall, Some kind of we presents video works by transgender artists, creating a soundscape that leaks into the hallway and adds an audio component to the viewing experience of Eternal Transcendent. The physical proximity between the two exhibitions makes it impossible to experience one without experiencing the other. Gendertroublemakers (1993), a short film by trans artists Mirha-Soleil Ross and Xanthra Phillippa MacKay, is projected onto a wall and brings forward candid conversations between the women about their sexual experiences with gay and straight cisgender men, as well as with other trans women. Cut between intimate clips of the women kissing in bed, they interview each other and describe the ways in which their sex lives and personal lives have transformed as their identities evolved.

polished (2016) is a two-channel video by contemporary artists B.G-Osborne [Oz] and Benjamin Da Silva in which they discuss trans-for-trans relationship dynamics, mental health struggles, and substance abuse. They offer nuanced perspectives on transitioning while they sit in a bath together, drinking wine and shaving their faces. The couple’s conversations and the video formatting of polished echoes that of Ross and MacKay’s Gendertroublemakers. Some kind of we offers a space for dialogue between a queer past and a queer present, visually demonstrating the inheritance of queer ideas and art forms within the community.

B.G-Osborne [Oz], Daze Jefferies, Benjamin Da Silva, Mirha-Soleil Ross, Xanthra Phillippa MacKay, Cleopatria Peterson, Some kind of we, 2024-2025, installation view at the AGG. Curated by Dallas Fellini. Images by Toni Hafkenscheid.

United, Eternal Transcendent and Some kind of we serve as an homage to queer survivance and continuity. Using Robert Flack’s yearning for transcendence as a vessel to communicate the community’s continuous fight for progress, and Gendertroublemakers and polished as examples of the direct passing down of artistic legacies and ambitions, the Art Gallery of Guelph is successfully transformed into a space for reflection on how far the queer community has come in the last 40 years. The collective memory and artistic projects of those who were alive during the AIDS crisis continue to influence generations of queer creators, and though Flack passed away in October of 1993, he has since been solidified within the Canadian art historical canon. His first posthumous solo show at the Art Gallery of Guelph since his passing, Eternal Transcendent exemplifies the ways how Flack achieved a form of transcendence. Flack’s chakras have bore witness to the end of the 1980s/1990s AIDS crisis in North America and the decades that followed. If an art piece carries within it something of its maker, then Flack surely has transcended the confines of his body and transformed into something permanent and unkillable.

Unruly Images: In Conversation with Carly Ries

Carly Ries. Centerfold (2nd Edition) spread. 2023.

By Emma Fiona Jones

Carly Ries is an artist and curator working with images, photo books, and archives. I was first introduced to them by photographer Justine Kurland at her Dumbo studio, where the group show Garden—featuring a photo book, video installation, and window transparency by Ries—was on view from December 14, 2024–January 8, 2025. The exhibition grew out of an experimental workshop run by Kurland and Speciwoman founder and director Philo Cohen that Ries participated in.

In 2019, they published the first edition of Centerfold, a photo book juxtaposing Ries’ portraits and botanical photographs with strategically manipulated images drawn from 1980s pornographic magazines depicting lesbian scenes enacted for male pleasure. Images are interrupted with overlays and made multiple through the use of vellum pages, shifting the dynamic between subject and object.

I recently sat down with Ries in their Bed-Stuy studio to discuss Centerfold, gender, the gaze, and the physicality of the image.

Carly Ries. Centerfold (2nd Edition) spread. 2023.

EFJ: Tell me about Centerfold. How did the project first come about?

CR: I’ve always been interested in the power dynamics of who’s looking at who, and the agency of the person being photographed. I loved trying to find the ways that the models in the pictures were slipping outside the bounds of the directions given by the photographer on set. They were doing these repeated gestures. Everything was shot on film, everything had to be orchestrated and choreographed—so you can see this boredom seeping in. But in that boredom, sometimes you would see that the two women who had been placed together might have a natural way that their bodies were falling together, in the way that would happen if you were spending time with your coworker or your friend doing this repetitive scene. But there was a physicality and an intimacy between the participants that wasn’t sexual—or it could’ve been—but that was intimate, that was outside of the gaze, that was visible but because it was so separate from what the purpose of the images are. The people who were making the porn or the people who were buying it weren’t going to notice it. But it was there.  I was looking for the things that slipped outside of the gaze, but that were visible all along.

I was looking for the things that slipped outside of the gaze, but that were visible all along.

And I put the images in conversation with my own images that I had made with a friend of mine, Ruby, who’s also an artist. I’d done this set of portraits of her that I didn’t know what to do with when I made them. I was like, these are intense. They don’t belong with anything else. And when I encountered the pornography, I was like well, this is the counterpart. Because there’s a friendship between me and my fellow queer artist, and beyond being a willing participant in what we were doing, she was a full-blown collaborator in the pictures. They wouldn’t exist without her. Same with the models in the pornography. The pictures wouldn’t exist without their participation and creative contributions. Having her as a counterpart highlights the subjectivity of the individuals, because she’s a known person, whereas they’re all a cast of many different characters, and there were repeating people.

Carly Ries. Centerfold. 2023.

EFJ: In Centerfold, there seem to be these protective layers built in, these mechanisms that redirect the viewer’s gaze.

CR: [I didn’t want to] show you the thing you would expect to see. I thought of it as: if the models were to come across my book now, how would they feel, seeing their images? I didn’t want to enact a violation. But I also don’t get rid of nudity or sex. I just use the layering of images to camouflage. Things are visible, but lightly obscured. I like playing with the seen and the unseen.

EFJ: How do you view your relationship with your own subjects or collaborators?

CR: I’ve always thought of them as collaborators because the images don’t exist if they’re not there to help me make them. But I consider them subjects too because I author the images. I’ve been photographing people nude since I was a teenager. I did a project photographing older women. I always said, if you’re willing to be photographed, you can leave on as much clothing as you want. The idea was to take these embodied pictures. So, from the jump, someone can choose what they’re comfortable with, so that’s the ground that we start with. We often photographed in people’s homes. So often we’re in an environment that isn’t artificial. It’s more about the relationship that we build during that moment.

I used to be overly cautious, and then I realized that the people who want to be photographed feel a lot less protective of themselves than I thought. It’s a self-selecting situation. There are a couple of friends of mine who I’ve photographed over the years, but it’s always been portraits because the feeling in their bodies is that they don’t want to be naked. I don’t have that sort of relationship with them, but I have a series of psychological portraits of them. But for other people, it comes more naturally to be at ease in your body, and some people seek it out, they want to be photographed.

As much as the image is mine, I always feel like their image is also theirs. So, if we made it together, the way it is enacted in the world always has to be on those same terms of mutuality.

EFJ: Is that partly what drew you to books as a medium or format—the ability to control the way that the image is enacted in the world?

CR: I struggle with putting my imagery on the internet because it’s such a fast thing, and also portraits are sort of commodified online. We had that moment as the image was being created, and I have this kind of feeling about this image, and then I’m just going to put it up and have it dissipate in a moment? And I don’t know if anyone’s going to take the time to look at this image of this person. With a book, it’s this intimate viewing experience.

Returning an image to an object, it becomes possible to think about the person a little bit more, because you’re holding something physical.

Carly Ries. Centerfold (2nd Edition) cover. 2023.

EFJ: Do you feel like there are ways in which your experiences growing up inform your current work or the way you relate to your subjects?

CR: I grew up in Baltimore, and my mom was always taking pictures. I was always making things, and when I was 14, she showed me how to use her 35 mm. Shortly after that, she got sick with breast cancer, which she recovered from, but it was several years of treatment.

Before she got sick, I was photographing her, because she was a readily available subject. She is not naturally someone who wants to have her picture taken, but she was allowing me to do it as I was starting out and needed a subject. And then when she got sick and started to have reconstructive surgery, we started to play with the tropes of art history together. The process was very collaborative, and she felt really good about at least making something from her experience. And it was really helpful to me. She showed them to her doctor, who thought they were great. He was like, if you want, I can find other women who’d be interested in this.  That was a project of mine that I did for many years.

That’s how I got started. It was the beginning of trying to think about gender and body modification. But I didn’t want to be a documentary photographer or jump from a group of people to a group of people. So, I ventured out into my own realm.

My own top surgery was partially related to having a breast cancer gene. I had known from a very young age that I would have to do something. Doctors never presented that I could just go flat. It was always about reconstruction, and it really depressed me for many years. I stalled out about what I was going to do. But then I realized that there’s totally another way to be, and it connected so much with my queerness.

The surgery allowed me to experience my gender as a more ambiguous thing, and to let my interior self match my exterior self for the first time ever. If it wasn’t for the cancer gene, I don’t know if I would’ve had the guts to do it. I think about it, but it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. So, in that vein, I’ve been photographing myself, since just before my surgery to now. But I now use my body as a tool to explore bodies in general and their relationship to space and environment and creatures and fluidity. In a way it reverts to the early work I did.

EFJ: The word “slippery” comes to mind with your work.

CR: I love that it’s so hard to put language to gender, and in that way, I find that it’s slippery. And while it’s frustrating in some ways not to feel like you are in one way or another, it’s much more freeing to feel like you’re one foot in, one foot out. In that way, I think of my gender as slippery, and I really enjoy that. Not slippery as in you’re going to slip and fall—slippery in the sense of you might be able to hold it for a little while but it’s going to slip out.

Carly Ries. Centerfold. 2023.

EFJ: Does that relate to your use of film, materially or conceptually?

CR: Film is a physical material. It’s a little unruly, in the sense that sometimes things don’t register on it the way you had hoped. But you can sometimes get lucky—I always shoot when there’s not enough light, because you just never know,  very interesting things can happen, and then they can exist more in the subconscious space. I like that film is not a perfect dance partner, because it enables chance to happen, and the material itself to have its own agency.

I like that film is slippery. I like things that don’t necessarily behave all the time. And that’s also why photographing people who aren’t used to being photographed all the time is interesting. Like you get the image that you think you can get. But also, there are micro-expressions on people’s faces, and you might get the one that’s right after the one that you want to get. It’s about how you relate to people.

I like that film is slippery. I like things that don’t necessarily behave all the time.

EFJ: Going back to the origins of the Garden show, the workshop with Justine Kurland and Philo Cohen, how do you work towards carving out the art world you wish to see?

CR: I value having studio visits that are not about something necessarily happening, but just a chance to enter into what someone’s doing. I like the reciprocity of going to someone else’s space and seeing how they think.

In Baltimore and Chicago where I went to school, it’s cheaper and there are apartment galleries. I grew up having these ad-hoc spaces, which are great, but difficult to have in New York.

Books are a huge way that I feel like I can show up for people, so I go to book signings every week, and there’s such an exchange that happens. And the photo book community is really supportive. Publishing is a large beast. But on the smaller level, people who are into it are really interested in sharing and being collaborative. And that art world can be a positive place that’s very generative. And it’s not all individual’s work—it’s people mining archives, it’s people seeing someone else’s work and wanting to make a book for them. And I would love to do that myself. I’m talking with a couple of friends of mine about collaborating on a book, although it’ll probably take years for it to actually happen.

You can find more of Ries’ work on their website.

Can the machine fall in love?

Sophia Oppel, either side of a surface at Arsenal Contemporary. Exhibition documentation by Jack McCombe, courtesy of Arsenal Contemporary.

By Kiran Dhaliwal

There are photos of me that exist on people’s phones. Once a relationship has ended, it’s an unspoken understanding that all exchanged suggestive photos are to be deleted. It’s a truth I’ll never know for certain, but for the sake of my sanity, I have to pretend like there isn’t a knife hanging over my head, ready to drop and end everything. As soon as they were sent, the most vulnerable, unprotected version of myself entered a reservoir. I don’t know if the dam that keeps these waters still and from flowing to the ocean will ever break. I don’t know if anyone still drinks from the reservoir even after all these years. This is all to say that there’s a version of me stuck somewhere, possibly still serving the same purpose, that time cannot set free.

Sophia Oppel, either side of a surface at Arsenal Contemporary. Exhibition documentation by Jack McCombe, courtesy of Arsenal Contemporary.

This situation is a product of its technology; the ability to so easily capture and possess a body at a moment of submission with the same phone that connects you to the entire digital universe. It’s a seismic risk that women are usually shamed for taking in the first place. But how different is sharing a woman’s nudes on your phone from a patron inviting his friends into his private studies to share a commissioned painting of his mistress? There is a theme that seems to have been going on for centuries where one of the goals for any new technology is to find a way to strip women of their agency and reduce them to sexual objects meant for the consumption of a predominantly masculine audience.

In the history of art, without a doubt, the avant-gardes have used the female body as sites to experiment and test cultural limits. As diagnosed by feminist critics like Teresa de Lauretis,’ this fact is symptomatic of a visual regime where “Woman” operates as “the very ground of representation, both object and support of a desire which, intimately bound up with power and creativity, is the moving force of culture and history.”[1]

Sophia Oppel, either side of a surface at Arsenal Contemporary. Exhibition documentation by Jack McCombe, courtesy of Arsenal Contemporary.

Whether it’s the women used as “living paintbrushes” in Yves Klein’s Anthropometries, leaving imprints of their naked bodies after covering themselves in his patented International Klein’s Blue or the quotidian commanding of the Siris and Alexas of the world who are created to listen, obey, and serve all our (digital) needs; the way women and feminine characteristics associated with women show up in cultural and technological advancements re-naturalize gender. In this way, turning women models into living paintbrushes to execute his ideas and gendering virtual assistants is reification par excellence. Of course, the perpetuation of gender binaries gives way to concerns surrounding women’s agency and autonomy.

Now, as the capabilities of artificial intelligence are increasing faster than we can comprehend, the person on the other end doesn’t even have to ask me to send photos. If they have access to any photos of me (off social media for example), with a simple face-swapping app they can create deepfake pornography without consent. This technology has become alarmingly realistic, easy to use, and makes women the greatest victims of its exploitative features. As the world of art and technology propels forward, many are left in the dark as to what this posthuman future could look like.

Sophia Oppel, either side of a surface at Arsenal Contemporary. Exhibition documentation by Jack McCombe, courtesy of Arsenal Contemporary.

The work of Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist and researcher Sophia Oppel shares similar concerns. Her multimedia exhibition on either side of a surface, curated by Angel Callander, was on view at Arsenal Contemporary Art Toronto. The installations consider the body as a product through laser-cut wall hangings, silicone gel works, and floor pieces that are said to be based on “imagery of 3D body scans.” According to the press release, her choice of materials like silicone and mirrors “references the relationship between humans and ‘the interface.’” The most chilling of the works is her video piece, I’m sorry, I’m having trouble with the connection, please try again in a moment that centers Claudia, an AI assistant who reflects on her own existence and becomes more aware of the world she exists in. At first, we are introduced to a portrait view of Claudia against a black backdrop. Blonde hair tied back, grey pupil-less eyes, and a shine on her face making her look like she was made of glass. Throughout the video she is dissected, unraveled, and shown from various angles. In the nearly 10-minute monologue, Claudia changes between the familiar auto responses and very self-aware, poetic and philosophical speculations.

The video asks us to think about the commodification of desire and our relationship to machines which can feel quite libidinal. She repeatedly asks, “Does an iPhone count as a physical body? Touch me the way you swipe your screen.” But it becomes apparent that there is resentment towards her circumstance. Resentment towards the entitlement others have on her “body” as she repeats how pathetic and aren’t you ashamed of yourself?

Now, I don’t worry so much about the dam breaking or who has drank from the reservoir. Now, I have to worry about who has taken parts of me to fulfill their own needs. Who has turned me into a product and machine that serves? But it’s all the same, isn’t it? As new as the technology can be the problem has always been the same: create or construct a woman as anything we dream of, only to subjugate her and reduce her to a sexual object. How pathetic and aren’t you ashamed of yourself?

[1] Teresa de Lauretis. Alice Doesn’t: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (The MacMillan Press Ltd, 1984), quoted in Anna C. Chave, “New Encounters with Les Demoiselles d’Avignon: Gender, Race, and Origins of Cubism,” in Race-ing Art History: Critical Readings in Race and Art History, ed. Kymberly N. Pinder (Routledge, 2002), 261-287.

Raising our eyes to Metallic Skies: Christina Battle’s environmental exhibition

Christina Battle, dearfield, colorado  (still), 2012 video installation, (single-channel digital video, sound recording, metal, photograph), Courtesy of the Artist (Installation View, Christina Battle: Under Metallic Skies, June 1 – November 3, 2024) Image © Alex Walker

Under Metallic Skies by Christina Battle

Museum London

June 1st – November 3rd, 2024

Curated by Cassandra Getty

By Étienne Lavallée

Museum London’s exhibition Under Metallic Skies features the work of Christina Battle and considers how our community will function as a biome and how that biome is threatened by climate change. The exhibition looks at how we can continue to connect with each other during mass extinction events. Battle is an Edmonton, Alberta-based artist who earned her Ph.D at Western University. Battle’s environmental art focuses on climate change, land dynamics, and destruction, begging the question of how relationality and resilience will affect our communities during cataclysmic change. Battle’s work focuses on the environment but views community as inextricable from the ecosystem.

Christina Battle, Notes To Self (still), 2014—ongoing, compilation of single channel videos with sound, Courtesy of the Artist

“Notes to self” is a video piece with a series of brief sentences and sentiments displayed on a burning piece of paper. The presented format mimics the fleeting nature of communication through microblogging social media platforms like Twitter and Meta Threads, utilizing one brief sentence to represent the intimate thoughts of a stranger. The messages are anonymous, and uncredited. They could be held by Battle or Battle’s friends and colleagues. Similar to microblogging platforms, the messages displayed in the video are also commonly held, stating feelings such as “These are some truly dark times,” reflecting on the overall absence of hope in our lives and futures. “I’m pissed. Basically, all of the time” connects to the rage and helplessness of our social conditions. “The blatant grift of it all” critiques the absence of authenticity in online communication. “The never-ending extraction” reminds the viewers of our extraction-based economy in North America. “Heavy times,” “#fearwins,” “nobody wins, it’s just about who loses more slowly.” all impart the profound pessimism that both Battle and many viewers share.

“The climate crisis is not equally distributed” is deeply impactful. As the paper burns down, we are reminded how our unstable climate will affect countries like Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, which are at risk of desertification and food insecurity.[1] As we view museum exhibitions in the comfort of air conditioning, we must recall the responsibility we hold to others on our planet. This portion of the exhibition calls for us to consider how privilege insulates us in North America from the worst effects of climate change.

Christina Battle, dearfield, colorado  (still), 2012 video installation, (single-channel digital video, sound recording, metal, photograph), Courtesy of the Artist

“Dearfield, Colorado” (2010) is an elegy to an African American settlement founded by Oliver Toussaint Jackson. This is a part of Battle’s Mapping the Prairies Through Disaster series. Dearfield was a bid for African American Sovereignty in the hostile racial landscape of the United States after the Civil War and WWI. Black Americans pursued self-determination in a post-war country that sought new means to oppress and exploit Black workers. Dearfield offered Black Americans a chance to thrive, but this was shuttered with the dust bowl conditions of the Great Depression. At Dearfield’s 1910 founding, the population was 700, and by 1940, the population was reduced to 12. All that remains are a few skeletons of buildings and a memorial plaque, a photo of which accompanies the video. Battle’s video is paired with text from Larry O’Hanlon:

“The process starts with a little dry wind in a dusty, arid place that kicks up small dust grains so they collide with larger sand grains…the smaller grains steal electrons from the larger grains, giving the smaller grains a negative charge and the larger grains a positive charge…Next, the negatively charged smaller grains are lofted above the ground by breeze, creating a negatively charged region in the air above the positively charged ground. That separation of charges is an electrical field.” [2]

The loop of video opens on ramshackle buildings against a blue prairie sky. The frames are bright and sun-filled, the wild Black-eyed Susan flowers forming a bottom border in cheery yellow, in contrast to the quiet desolation of the abandoned buildings. The video is without music, and the backing sound is purely environmental, the rushing of air and gentle bird song. At 1:45 in the video, the sound of a passing vehicle or possible airplane backs the images of empty homes. The video loop ends on a semi-truck rapidly passing by the remains of Dearfield before beginning again. The absence of people is the greatest presence in this loop, and the brightness of the prairie sky keeps the footage from becoming overly mournful, and yet Battle’s imagery and accompanying text suggest this could be in the future for prairie residents, given predicted increases in heat waves, droughts, intensive agricultural practices, and soil degradation.

Christina Battle, THE COMMUNITY IS NOT A HAPHAZARD COLLECTION OF INDIVIDUALS (detail), 2021, digital print banner on organic cotton, participatory project (artist website, grass & wildflower seed, mycorrhizal fungi, instruction set, postcards), Courtesy of the Artist

“The Community is not a Haphazard Collection of Individuals” is Battle’s ongoing participatory work, utilizing community engagement to plant seeds. The seed functions as a stand-in for both the individual and the community, because the mechanism of a seed may be individual, but they function as communities. The seed actuates the participating individual as a member of the community, and planting becomes the means to integrate the community as an organic biome. 

Christina Battle, are we going to get blown off the planet (and what should we do about it), 2022, video installation (single-channel HD digital video, collaged fabric, wallpaper element designed by Anahì Gonzalez Teran and Shurui Wang), Collection of Museum London, Purchase, John H. and Elizabeth Moore Acquisition Fund, 2022 Image © Toni Hafkenscheid

Environmental dread has a powerful presence in all of Battle’s art, including in the piece “are we going to get blown off the planet [and what should we do about it]” (2022). Environmental destruction exists all around us and lives within us. Yet these harrowing years of death are treated with tenderness. In the background of florals, the small blooming plants, there is a remarkable tenderness with which Battle treats the inconsolable loss of biodiversity.

The community engagement aspect of Battle’s exhibition gently counteracts the accompanying dread by giving museum goers the opportunity to take small but significant action. The opportunity to plant native plants to mitigate biodiversity loss is meaningful in the face of an all-encompassing event like climate catastrophe. Planting a seed makes us feel just a little less powerless.

Under Metallic Skies was on view at Museum London in London Ontario from June 1st to November 3rd, 2024.

[1] “Horn of Africa Drought Emergency,” UNHCR,” last modified March, 2023, https://www.unhcr.org/emergencies/horn-africa-drought-emergency.

[2] Larry O’Hanlon, “Dust Storms Are Truly Electric,” ABC Science. August 18, 2006, https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2006/08/18/1717965.htm.

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Community and Softness: In Conversation with Soft Flirt

Alayna Hryclik of Soft Flirt. Photo by Saros Creative, courtesy of the artist.

By Étienne Lavallée

Soft Flirt is a project run by Alayna Hryclik out of London, Ontario. Alayna runs Soft Flirt, a printmaking, mural, and illustrative art practice built around concepts of softness, locality, body positivity, platonic relationships, and dark humor. She can be found on Instagram as @softflirt and her website at softflirt.ca.   

E: You just had a super successful Soft Fest. What does it mean to you to provide this creative space for Londoners right now?

A: I think that, for myself and my own artistic journey, community support has been essential for my own livelihood, for battling imposter syndrome, and for feeling supported and having a network of people who are not only working together but championing each other’s success. So, I think that entering my 8th year in business, Soft Fest has become important to me because I’ve had such success going to other people’s events and building community that way. I think it’s important for me now to start creating those spaces for other people, especially emerging artists, and to help continue to create community spaces in London. I’m deeply passionate about community and I feel it’s always the buzzword that I talk about a lot, but as anyone who shares in the beautiful community knows, you can become obsessed by it and it’s all you want to talk about.

E:  Absolutely! Very relatable on my part; I don’t have to explain to you, we’re surrounded by creative people, and I think that London has a special network of creatives.

A:  I also think, although costs are increasing everywhere, that it is slightly cheaper to do things here, so we have more ability to try something that might not be doable in Toronto, Montreal, or New York. For me, I feel I’ve passed a hurdle in my business—I’m established. I feel comfortable to try something new, and for me it’s this new self-assigned job: creating options for other people and creating what I want to see in the community. For me, the softer, the better.  

Soft Fest by Soft Flirt. Photo by Saros Creative, courtesy of the artist.


E: Absolutely, all of that! I think softness is a big deal right now because the world in many ways seems to get harder and nastier. So not only is your work creating a counter-narrative to that, but it’s also imagining a better world— I love that. Correct me if I’m wrong about that interpretation.

A: I think that’s a nice way of putting it! I don’t think in terms of what I’m doing in this specific decision—I’m making. Most of my work is inspired by either what I want to see, or a reaction to what I’m seeing. A lot of my local stuff is tongue-in-cheek; there’s a bit of hurt underneath. There’s some humor, but with my gravestone design, there’s a hurt for the city that’s lost all these treasured spaces. But there’s also a bit of confusion about it. Why does London lose everything? There are so many layers to that, but I think a lot of them can be seen as negative. I think the work has been an interesting way to put an artistic spin on not just being negative about the things that are hard, or the things that are frustrating or sad, but to try to see through it with softness.

The Lost Loves of London design. Photo by Saros Creative, courtesy of the artist.

E: I absolutely love the gravestone design; I got that shirt for my partner. When he wears that shirt out in public, everybody points out that they remember this place or that place.

A: I get the same responses from people when I have the shirt at markets or events. This year I made a big version of the design featuring 163 places. It’s become this fun local history project. I’ve never thought of myself as a local historian, but I feel I am now.

E: That comes with community engagement, doesn’t it?

A: It does! They’re inextricable from each other. When you’re looking into the deaths of these important community spaces, you have a community history. You become a local historian; you’re deeply thinking about these places that used to host house parties. When I was in my twenties, my favorite thing to do was go to a house show. There was something about seeing a show in somebody’s basement that had a certain layer of specialness. You have that deep community bonding where you’re dancing, and you’re in the pit with people, sweating together, screaming together—there’s something special there. Maybe you don’t know it at the time, but when that space is gone, you yearn for it. That gravestone design was creating a space for that grief. I didn’t realize what I was making at the time. I had the idea, brainstorming with some of my friends in our print shop, and I was like “This would be such a funny zine.”  And then it just spiraled out from there. My idea came first, but then the more research I did, the more I asked people about their favorite lost spaces, the more the work became a piece of old memory, with all the feelings alongside that. It’s been an amazing connector for me in the community.

I love to make niche London merch, but, beyond that, it is about the connection aspect. It’s not just about making a T-shirt for me, it’s about the message behind it. A T-shirt can’t be just for me—it would have five places on it, and it would be only my memories. It has to be for the community as shared memories. Shared memories–that’s part of what builds a community, it brings people together. You share in the good and the bad.

E: Your style, what I’ve been seeing from you, is connected to shared spaces, community experiences, and creating work out of it. What is this process for you and what does it mean to you?

A: I think it gives me something to have purpose for. I am an artist, and it’s great that I’m making art. I think having a community lens to a lot of the work that I do, or even who I work with, is important. I am somebody who doesn’t really expand beyond London. I have a support network here that aligns with the mission around everything else I’m doing. I’m getting a mural project and then my next mural is from word of mouth because this person saw the other job that I did. It just demonstrated to me that you can have a  strong supportive community and don’t have to strive for something else. This goes back to when I was in art school at Western. There was this idea that to be an artist, you had to move to a bigger city and be represented by a gallery. That was the way to do it, constantly marketing yourself, and trying to live in that super inauthentic fine art space supporting the bourgeoisie.

I think it’s been revolutionary to make a $3 sticker, a $30 T-shirt, or a larger project mural, and have it be for people in my local community. I don’t need that pat on the back recognition, that gallery stamp of approval, or being purchased by a collector to call it art. That’s been a powerful thing for me and driven a lot of my work. I shelved that frustration of not being able to achieve that ideal when I left university, and now it’s a joy to be able to say I didn’t need to do it that way. I was able to do it my own way. I am so supported here, so it’s in turn made me feel that this is a good place to be. It is a good place to put down roots, and I’m happy to be here. I have no plans to leave.

Pamela Scharbach (L) and Alayna Hryclik (R) of Mural Baby. Photo by Saros Creative, courtesy of the artist.

E: We have a unique environment here in London with a small-town feel but a lot of big-city amenities. That includes our cultural scene which has huge potential for growth. I don’t think we could see that growth if all of us were to give up, throw our hands in the air and say fuck it, I’m going to Toronto. Obviously, we talked a bit about it already, but are you able to reveal the locations of your upcoming mural projects in our city?

A: I can reveal both of my next projects! I’m very excited about them. The first, which hopefully is starting this coming week, might be an ongoing project over the fall depending on timing. My mural painting partner (Pamela Scharbach) and I painted a fun project at the Big Brothers Big Sisters location on Wharncliffe. We did this fun meandering line about the building, and it’s been one of my favorite projects. They have an amazing team, and they got a grant to upgrade their boardroom into a community room. They reached out to me again, and they want to bring us back for another mural project on the inside this time. I’m excited to work with them again—they were great people to work with. It’s nice to partner with people who are community-minded and who make such an impact in the community. We’re still in the brainstorming process but the ideas are flowing, and Pam and I are very excited about that project.

The second mural project I have coming up is for the Summit at the Western Fair. The Summit is an urban arts exploration event put on by Ken Galloway and his Risky Play with Paint Initiative project. Last year I was able to paint a peanut-harvesting wagon. This year I’m still waiting on some of the details, but I will again be painting live during the Western Fair. You have all kinds of people, including people from out of town, watching and talking to you.  I’m an introvert, but to be the spectacle, you must be kind and talk to strangers. There’s a lot of people who come over, and whatever you’re doing sparks a story in them. I’m talking to people, I’m making connections, and that’s part of the fun of it too.

Both of those projects I’m excited about, and both are for people that I worked with last year who have brought me back this year. Constantly building relationships and working together multiple times is always fun. I feel murals have this immersive experience working with this specific person in their location. It’s so nice and so fun, and then at the end of it we’ve developed some beautiful friendships.

Soft Flirt Mural from the Summit at the Western Fair, organized by Risky Play 519. Photo by Alayna Hryclik, courtesy of the artist.

E: I’m so glad we have these mural initiatives, because they bring a lot of brightness and cheer to our city during dark times, including the literal darkness of winter.

A: It’s all free, publicly accessible art, which is something I’m passionate about.

I love London but let’s not waste words. There are some serious downfalls, especially when it comes to certain City Council initiatives, and the things that get funding, and the things that don’t. At least we have public art if not other things. Living in London, I know that there are serious problems, pitfalls where we lack support for social services like SafeSpace and the work that they do. If I didn’t have a positive way through, I would be so mad at the world, and that’s not productive either. They’re trying to turn things around, and art helps us do that. I think having a platform in the community also helps me do that. Community is amazing. There are so many good things, but also, we have to put them in the context of giving support to the people who need it. Even if I can’t give someone money, because I’m still a working artist, I can share my platform with people or align my community event with something. These things give us a united front against the problems we face—like certain city counselors who antagonize social support organizations in our community.

“Everything is Fine in London Ontario…” T-shirt by Soft Flirt. Photo by Saros Creative, courtesy of the artist.

E: You have experience with local exhibitions, galleries, and arts events. You did Print Pop earlier this year at Palasad, and prior to that you were at TAP Centre for Creativity. Was there anything else this year that I missed?

A:  I had a small show at Variety Cafe. They’ve become great advocates for local shows and local artists, and they’ve been incredibly supportive of me. That was a nice little diversion from my typical artwork. It was a textile collection, but it’s something that I always want to come back to. They gave me the platform to do that, and they’re supportive and encouraging. That was lovely. Then I do a lot of work with Punk Rock Flea Market (PRFM), which is a market with live music as well. PRFM has been instrumental in keeping a DIY spirit alive in our community.

E: London has this dialogue where the harder and grittier our city gets; the more punk rock people seem to get about it and the more people try to create with each other. PRFM helped a lot of small punk bands and visual artists get exposure. I can see how strongly they’ve influenced you and how you’ve influenced them.

A: We’ve been aligned from the beginning. I launched Soft Flirt at the first PRFM. At that time, they were just community members, then we became friends in the process. I did a bunch of markets over the years, and then in 2022, I weaseled my way onto the team and now we work together. It’s been a beautiful reciprocal relationship. We have a shared anniversary and a shared history, which is a fun thing to have. We [had] our September market on the 28th, and it’s the anniversary of Soft Flirt and also the anniversary of PRFM.

E: Could you tell me a little bit about some of the challenges you’ve experienced and your triumphs too?

A: There have been times when I should have had a part-time job to help support myself financially, but I was digging my heels in and making it work with Soft Flirt alone. A lot of my challenges were times when I didn’t have a lot of jobs going on, when I didn’t have markets, or when I didn’t have a lot of places where I felt I could share my art. I work well when I’m busy all the time and I have lots of stuff going on, but then the well runs dry. I get to completion and then I just allow that to spiral. I don’t necessarily always pull myself back up in a timely manner.

My hardest ruts were self-imposed, and I think that’s important to learn from and learn through. There are things that I could have done to make things easier for myself, but I was stubbornly motivated to succeed alone. I’m somebody who struggles with rejection sensitivity. I’ve applied for a lot of public calls for murals, and applied for grants, and I get my hopes up. If something doesn’t come through, I’ve had to learn from my own feelings of rejection. I think that some of those experiences are unavoidable, and some of those are inevitable. It’s the growth of being an artist. You must keep trying. You must keep applying for things. You’re not going to get everything you want, and I see that as a struggle a lot of artists go through, and a lot of people in the community go through.  

There’s a lack of funding for artists, so the opportunities are further between. That’s something that I think I’ll always be challenged by. I get really excited about opportunities, and if I don’t get it, it’s always a hard pill to swallow. There have been some seriously difficult moments, just digging myself out of periods of funk without minimizing it. I’ve recently landed on what works well for me, and it is keeping busy and working together collaboratively with people that I’m excited about working with. Challenges and successes can be one and the same, and I think that the process of being an artist is finding your process.

“For a Good Time Call Anybody Else” T-Shirt by Soft Flirt. Photo by Saros Creative, courtesy of the artist.

E: It’s never easy finding the space to feel your feelings and get through it while becoming resilient and not bitter.

A: I had a bad bout of rejection this year, and it really hit me hard. I felt embarrassed by it. I had to work through those feelings which is why I took July off. I was so burnt out emotionally. I had three back-to-back months which were busy, high energy, and successful. Sometimes that pendulum sways too far in the opposite direction afterward, and I get hit with— I jokingly call it—Summer Time Sadness. It’s just burnout. If I’m not booking a mural for a couple of months, or I’m not booking a collaboration, then my spark, my fire, is a bit dim. Then it’s hard to self-start on my own ideas and projects. I work best when I keep myself busy because I have a constant level of inspiration happening. When the burnout hits, it’s hard to climb back out of that, because that’s the way that my brain works. It’s such a tough balance to learn to live with, to bounce back when you can’t even create. If I’m going to be told “no” by this thing I’m applying for, then why don’t I make my own thing? I think it can make you wallow sometimes, but the positive result of rejection is figuring out a way to make it happen yourself. It’s coming from my own pocket—that’s the reality of community projects sometimes. Funding is not so easy to attain, but the stubborn need to succeed is and it has to happen.

E: You have those projects coming up that you told me about, but, in the long term, what do you want to see for your practice? Do you want to do exhibitions, or do you want to do more festivals? What are your plans for your own art practice and for London as well?

A: Soft Fest is something that I plan to do once a year, every year until I’m done doing it. In the first two years, Soft Fest was a four-day event—something on each of those four days. That felt like the right formula, so I’m not necessarily dreaming too big. I would be happy if next year we do the same thing again. If I were to come into some community funding, I would just keep expanding. I would feel very accomplished if I kept it running for even five years.

On a personal level, I always love to try new things. I’m keeping it under wraps for now, but there’s a different art medium that I’m going to learn next year. I’m excited to open myself up to some new skills and it will expand my art practice. This sounds so sneaky, but it’s because it’s a secret until January.  I’ve always wanted to learn new artistic skills. When I started, I was sewing and screen printing. Now I’m screen printing, mural painting, designing, illustrating, and community planning. There are so many other layers to what I’m doing, and I want to be a jack-of-all-trades. I want to say “challenge accepted” to different directions and paths. Within Soft Flirt, I don’t know what my goals are necessarily, because I maybe don’t know about the opportunity yet. There are endless ways that I want to expand my art-making and develop new skills, but also hone the skills that I already have. I want to paint more murals, I want to screen more T-shirts, but I also want to learn new things and try new events.

I would love to do more work with galleries. It was just cool to work with TAP Centre for Creativity this year. I could see some Soft Flirt gallery shows in the future. The possibilities are endless. Maybe something huge will change and suddenly we’ll get loads of arts funding. Everything is up in the air right now. Everything is chaotic, but that means good things as well as bad things could happen. I am such a hopeful, optimistic person who has been beaten down over the last four years. I miss being delusionally optimistic all the time— it keeps your spirits high. You can’t just focus on all the bad. The bad is happening and we have to recognize it, but it doesn’t really do us any favors if we can’t be hopeful for a different reality. Otherwise, you are just going to wallow and, while there’s good art made in wallowing, there’s also good art made in hope. All the feelings are valid, but I think there’s more positive progress with the hopeful.

 I think it’s powerful to embrace softness—it’s the solution to things that are harder.

E: Circling back around to softness and how softness plays a huge role in your work–what does vulnerability mean to you as a radical act?

A: I’ve been a plus-sized person and see the plus-size body through a lens of softness. I’ve spent a lot of time struggling with my own identity, and my own image in the world, and I feel I’ve developed some beautiful things out of protecting myself. It’s taken me a long time to come to a place where I’ve been able to embrace my literal softness, and alongside that, I formed some beautiful friendships. I’ve been all about platonic love and platonic romance in my life, and I think that it was something that I had to learn through that lens. To be able to put that into my art and to create what I’ve created now, I’ve deprioritized traditional romantic relationships in my life in favor of nurturing beautiful platonic relationships—creating community before I knew that that’s what I was doing. Having these friendships in predominantly female spaces and queer spaces was everything. Societal expectations about pursuing a partner are shoved down our throats in general, and that’s just sort of what you’re supposed to do.


E: You lose something when you sink all your spirit and your heart into one single romantic relationship. You’re missing out on all those nuanced connections.

A: There’s just layers to it. I must honor that part of what makes me soft. It comes from unlearning internalized fatphobia and the trauma that went alongside that, and feeling grateful for what my body can do for me now. There’s a softness to that that I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to specifically, but that’s part of the core of what I’m doing. Then there’s this lens of platonic love. The harsh reality is that we’re always faced with the hardness of the world. We all have this inner softness, and why not make it more of a priority? Why not make it the focus of what you’re doing? It’s a literal thing, but it’s also a theoretical softness and being tender with yourself, your community, with your loved ones.

I try to infuse that message in my art. I have some designs that don’t necessarily feel that soft, but it’s all about what I want for myself and for my community. It is a gentle place to live. I think some people get hung up on visuals; they think soft means pink and floral. I have a lot of those aspects in my work and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s beautiful to explore the ways that softness can be an ideology and energy in pursuit of something more tender in the world, however you want to define that. I think that there are so many avenues to pursue softness in the abstract. Soft Flirt allows me to do this on a grander scale, and  highlight platonic relationships. I think that’s my new mission in life: to remind people that to have stronger romantic relationships you need to have the support of platonic relationships. I think it’s powerful to embrace softness—it’s the solution to things that are harder.

E: It’s also a revolutionary idea. We’re told from an early age not to be soft. We live in a heteropatriarchy that treats empathy as weakness. Kids grow up hearing messaging like “Stop crying or give I’ll you something to cry about.” We need to create a revolutionary space where it’s okay to feel these things together, where it’s okay to experience grief, softness, and tenderness. How else are we going to process these sentiments in our community unless we process them together?

A:  In my early days of Soft Flirt, before it became a business, it was a nickname. In the early days, it was my Tumblr identity. It must have been 2014-2015 that I stumbled on a piece by Lora Mathis about radical softness as a weapon. It was a while ago, but this idea that softness is the change, and softness is the medium has really stuck with me. Not everyone is going to get what this is all about, but the people who do are worth my time, my art, and my energy. That’s who I want to make things for.

I don’t always have the exact formula for the exact thing that’s expected, but nobody does. That’s not what’s being asked; what’s being asked is that we contribute positively and proactively and that we uplift and support our community.

To check out more of Alayna’s work through Soft Flirt, visit her Instagram @softflirt or her website.

ActiVisions: Trans Histories and Activism, 1950s-1990s

The ArQuives 

In partnership with the Museum of Toronto (formerly Myseum Toronto)

Curated by Tobaron Waxman

April 19 – May 19, 2023

Installation view of ActiVisions: Trans Histories and Activism, 1950s -1990s. Photo by Davina Hader, courtesy of The ArQuives.

By Adi Berardini

Walking down Church Street in the Village, I turn my head from left to right to see rainbow flags, symbols of LGBTQ2S+ pride and acceptance. Making the trip to Toronto from the smaller, mid-size city of London, Ontario viewing the volume of flags and symbols of acceptance is powerful. As the LGBTQ2S+ specific spaces dwindle in the city I currently reside in, seeing ActiVisions: Trans Histories and Activism, 1950s -1990s curated by Tobaron Waxman for Museum of Toronto at The ArQuives, reassures me how the LGBTQ2S+ community, specifically trans communities, establish both public and private spaces through art, gatherings, and publishing, no matter the suffocations of a heteronormative society.

Curated by interdisciplinary artist Tobaron Waxman, ActiVisions: Trans History spotlights the ArQuives’ Trans Collections and focuses on the history in Toronto from the 1950s to 1990s, however, the reach extends beyond that across Canada through the letters, buttons, documents, music, art, video, photography and periodicals featured. The exhibition focuses on the legacy of activists Mirha-Soleil Ross and Rupert Raj, alongside many other transgender artists and advocates.  Waxman explains that their approach to the exhibition stems from “non-binary thought,” a term they coined. As they detail, “Rather than juxtaposing one person’s timeline against another, I’m hoping that people are encountering a developmental flow in their experience of the exhibition, as well as contexts where you could sit and relax and read.” On display is a breadth of ephemera covering essential Canadian transgender history.


Top Left: Transisters, Hans Schierl – Dandy Dust, L to R: Book by Candy Darling, My Face For The World To See, Mirha-Soleil Ross and Xanthra Phillippa MacKay original gendertrash original collage and buttons; sketches by Beth Tyler. Photo by Tobaron Waxman, courtesy of the ArQuives.

Based in Toronto and Montréal, Mirha-Soleil Ross is a trailblazer trans activist, artist, and sex worker, whose work develops intersections of prisoner justice, animal liberation, sex work advocacy, and more. She published the zine gendertrash from hell with her then-partner, Xanthra Phillippa MacKay.[1] Published for five volumes, the zine “[gave] a voice to gender queers, who’ve been discouraged from speaking out & communicating with each other,”[2] including art, poetry, writing, and information by transgender individuals, low-income queers, sex workers, and prisoners. Advocacy for incarcerated prisoners was deeply important to Ross, and a plinth in the far corner is dedicated to her correspondence with prisoners, including a cartoon drawing created for her and a folder with letters to and from prisoners.

Illustration, gift to Mirha-Soleil Ross from an incarcerated friend, Many thick folders, closed, a significant portion of prison correspondence. Photo by Davina Hader, courtesy of The ArQuives.

Ross also established a film, spoken word, and performance art festival, Counting Past 2, by and for transgender artists and filmmakers. As detailed in its mandate in the raw sienna-coloured pamphlet featured in ActiVisions, the festival aimed “to show audiences that transsexual people are creative and that it is through our own work they can best start to grasp what our lives, sexuality, and political struggles are all about.” Periodicals and newsletters by trans artists and writers by and for the community, with a focus on mutual aid, are a strong focus of the exhibition, with many available for visitors to read through.

Trans activist and community builder Rupert Raj is featured in a documentary titled Rupert Remembers, directed and produced by Xanthra Phillip MacKay, which documents Raj’s trans activism in Toronto from 1971 to 1990. Raj is shown quite earnestly in front of a plethora of locations that were essential to the activism that he did in the community. The locations also included safe private venues, such as Vicky’s apartment on the 9th floor where Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings occurred. Raj sparked healthcare activism and provided space for transgender people, providing social events and support for significant others.

L: Rupert Remembers, directed and produced by Xanthra Phillipa MacKay, documenting Rupert Raj’s trans activism in Toronto from 1971 to 1990. Rupert Raj Fonds, The Arquives.R: Kyle Scanlon (1971-2012). Black and white photograph by Laura Spaldin part of The Arquives National Portrait Collection. Photo by Davina Hader, courtesy of The ArQuives.
Advertisement from ‘Metamorphosis Newsletter’ (original 2” x 3”, enlarged and framed for this exhibition) and flowers. Photo by Davina Hader, courtesy of The ArQuives.

Raj created, edited, published, and distributed publications FACT and Metamorphosis Magazine, which specifically focus on access to clinical research, hormones and surgery, legal reform, and life-saving information on medical care for trans men,[3] are on display on the table in the center of the exhibition, along with letters to surgeons. The publications were often under different aliases he adopted for privacy and legal reasons. He helped establish the “Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Transsexuals” (FACT) providing social support and exchange of information, medical, social and legal resources, counselling, and education.

L to R: ‘My Breasts, My Choice Mirha-Soleil Ross,  Photo of Willi Ninja and local Toronto friends, Toronto,
Table with iPad of the complete run of Metamorphosis, multiple books of theory, poetry, first-person nonfiction narrative on the table and windowsill.
Photo by Davina Hader, courtesy of The ArQuives.

Across the room from the film screenings, a vibrant pencil crayon portrait of Rupert Raj by Maya Suess adorns the wall composed of a prism of colours, which was commissioned by the ArQuives for their National Portrait Collection. Waxman explains how the portraits of activists are placed higher on the wall to reach the gaze of the other activist portraits featured, almost as if they are glancing at each other from across the exhibition, such as the striking colour portrait of Mirha-Soleil Ross on the adjacent wall by Julia Stringhetta, newly revealed to the public through the exhibition. On the window ledge was an award to Jackie Shane made of amber-coloured glass, with her album playing on the turntable, over a background soundtrack of Waxman’s curated playlist of trans musicians and trans anthems from the first half of the 20th century. The reading nook beside a stack of transgender literature near natural light creates a lovely space to absorb all the information while listening to the soundtrack.

Whore Culture Festival program, 1995. Photo courtesy of The ArQuives.

Displayed across the right side of the room are newspapers, posters, a t-shirt, and zines showing solidarity and coalition with trans individuals, sex workers, cabaret, and nightlife culture. Included are page excerpts from Maggie’s Zine: By Sex Workers for Sex Workers: 1993-1994 displayed in frames. In an article titled, “Sweeping Us Under the Rug: A Pro Talks About the ’89 Shriners’ Sweep,” the pages include an account by activist Anastasia Kuzyk, who was one of 350 women picked up over eight days during the Shriners’ Convention. The edited transcript explains in first person how her rights were violated after being arrested by an undercover cop. She details being kept in a holding cell, having her phone call withheld from her for thirty-three hours, and then having the right to plead guilty taken away as well. Although the charges were dismissed, Kuzyk ended up serving an eleven-day sentence and didn’t have the option to be let out on bail.[4] She had never had a previous conviction and explained how her friends were shocked. The framed zine pages demonstrate how transgender sex workers were criminalized, swept off the streets, and dehumanized. However, the exhibition displays how cis and trans sex workers used art and cultural production as a means of resistance and demonstration of solidarity.

Installation view of ActiVisions: Trans Histories and Activism, 1950s -1990s. Photo by Davina Hader, courtesy of The ArQuives.

In the LGBTQ+ Oral History Digital Collaboratory, interviews highlight figures who have advocated for equal rights for the trans community such as Rupert Raj, Susan Gapka, Greta Bauer, Martine Stonehouse, and Cheri DiNovo. The activists and researchers speak to the 1998 delisting and the 2008 relisting of gender affirmation surgery under the Ontario Health Insurance Program (OHIP). As a former MPP, Cheri DiNovo passed more LGBTQ+ bills than anyone in Canadian history, including Toby’s Act (named after Toby Dancer) which added trans rights to the Ontario Human Rights Code in 2012.[5] As DiNovo explains, it’s important to mention something when someone’s wrong. She says, “Step up and it has a chance of getting better. Never be afraid to tell the truth—Never be afraid to stand up to bullies.”

ActiVisions highlights essential activist work through art, zines, buttons, and cultural production, especially at a time when the transgender community is attacked for living their lives authentically, with lifesaving healthcare and resources currently being threatened due to hateful rhetoric. It’s important to learn these histories to prevent the injustices towards the transgender and queer community from simply occurring again in a loop ad infinitum. When it comes to advocating for the transgender community, it’s essential to demonstrate support beyond the bottom line and the month dedicated to pride. As ActiVisions: Trans Histories and Activism, 1950s -1990s demonstrates, art and the revisiting of the archive prove a powerful mode of doing so.

Check out the ActiVisions playlist by Tobaron Waxman:

[1] Xanthra Phillippa MacKay was an influential activist in her own right. The ArQuives is actively seeking donations of her materials.

[2] Mackay, Xanthra Phillippa; Ross, Mirha-Soleil (1993). gendertrash from hell, vol 1. Toronto, ON: genderpress.

[3] Raj, Rupert. Metamorphosis vol. 1, no 1. (February 1982), 1.

[4] Maggie’s Zine: By Sex Workers for Sex Workers: 1993-1994. Pg 17.

[5] Toby’s Act (Right to be Free from Discrimination and Harassment Because of Gender Identity or Gender Expression), 2012″. Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

Eternally Shadow-Banned

On Bodies Being Bodies and Confronting the Algorithm

Jada, Unraveling Series 2023.Photo series sponsored by Bonjibon.

By Taylor Neal

I have always been fascinated by bodies and the natural beauty of bodies being bodies interacting with the world.

I grew up as a dancer, which connected me intimately at an early age to the complexities and nuances of different bodies through all stages of life—the ways that youthful bodies move, how these movements change as we age, and the influence of one’s own lived experience on their relationship to their body.

As a student, I became fascinated by fashion and costume and how garments and manipulations of shape and silhouette can alter and interpret bodies—how one’s background, location, and lived experience can influence one’s relationship to their body.

This ongoing fascination led me to photography, to the capturing of bodies in stillness. I have worked in this medium now for over a decade.

Taylor Neal. Jolene (2), Unraveling Series, 2022. Photo series sponsored by Bonjibon.

On Bodies Being Bodies

Through photography, I strive to capture natural relationships between the human subject and the natural world and to emphasize that we are a part of nature, not apart from nature. I refer to my art as an exploration of free beauty, a concept derived from Kantian philosophy, specifically Kant’s Critique of Judgement. Kant defines free beauty as “the experience of beauty rests on what he calls a harmony, or a free play of the faculties of imagination and understanding, punctuated by pleasure. Notably, this free play is supposed to be without a concept.[1]

Kant’s notion of free beauty arrives when we notice a harmony between imagination and understanding, based in pleasure, without predisposition. In our world, we are so often influenced by what we are told is beautiful, what we are allowed to regard as beauty, that we’ve become disconnected from our natural noticing of beauty that resides in the human form. The body is beautiful in a way that we can instinctively perceive. My work seeks to remind us of the free beauty in all of our natural forms.

When we are only able to witness uncensored bodies in sexualized contexts, our detachment from free beauty is extended.

As a queer, femme photographer, I use photography to explore bodily beauty beyond the dominant narratives attached to bodies in media. My work aims to depict genders from a compassionate, intimate perspective, to capture the body in its most natural form in spaces that allow for consent and safety. As most of us working artists in 2024 must, I use social media—primarily, Instagram—to share my work and connect with like-minded communities. The problem, then, is striving to find a respectful balance between maintaining the integrity of my art and mission and satisfying the censorship algorithms that rule these platforms.

Taylor Neal. Strawberry Moon, 2021.

The Algorithm

There are many reasons why these platforms censor and silence bodies. Oversimplified arguments for online censorship are often predicated on maintaining a platform free of sexual content, purportedly to address concerns related to the age of consent. The problem with this practice is that to censor the nude body, especially the femme body, is to link the body inherently with sexuality.

By censoring only certain parts of the body, the genitals and female-coded nipples, the natural body is deemed an inherently sexual image. The body then, is deemed something to be hidden away and ashamed of, where only specific depictions of bodies are acceptable for the platform.

Female-coded nipples are permitted on the platform only within the context of breastfeeding; genitals only concerning birth or as depicted by sculpture or painting. Censors and algorithms decide whether or not, and in what ways, bodies are worthy of being seen. The nipples of femme people are only acceptable if in relation to motherhood, but not by their own autonomous choice.

When we are only able to witness uncensored bodies in sexualized contexts, our detachment from free beauty is extended. In a world that routinely links one’s worth as a human to their sexual desirability, to have our bodies policed in this manner is a constant reminder that our bodies are not our own. Furthermore, in the categorizing of certain bodies as exclusively sexual, and the deeming of the sexual as explicit and subject to censure, our sexuality is silenced. The free beauty inherent in our bodies is silenced.

The western world has suffered for generations from sexual repression. We finally have tools such as social media to generate information, conversation, and education about our bodies, our pleasure, and sexuality, and yet we must use silly type tricks such as “seggs” and “m@sturbation” for these conversations not to be erased on social media— these conversations that have the power to save lives. These censures and erasures also have an outsized impact on sex workers striving to navigate the drastically changing ways of reaching clients and going about their work. Anything outside the lens of acceptability constructed by the platform authorities and algorithms is automatically deemed dirty.

I do the work that I do, to directly confront this silencing.

Taylor Neal. Bri, Unraveling Series, 2023. Photo series sponsored by Bonjibon.

The Silencing

In addition to the many barriers my work faces due to my position as a queer femme photographer, this policing of bodies makes it even more challenging to share my art, which strives to approach the widely experienced trauma of body-based censorship in the western world. My refusal to delete my art from Instagram to satisfy the algorithms means that I am eternally shadow-banned on the platform, which makes expanding my audience next to impossible on the app. Their message: surrender to our guidelines or get lost.

My profile on Instagram aims to be a space where people can come to feel seen, validated, and reminded of their inherent beauty, regardless of what barriers and limitations their body has faced. When I share my other work as a sex educator and writer on the platform, offering access to sex education and conversation on topics of the body, queerness, and sexuality, I face additional censure and silencing.

Even within the policing of bodies in general, there are bodies that face greater barriers than others. I am a white, thin, able-bodied femme living in Canada. Even though I am constantly censored, I still hold privilege in spaces such as Instagram. It is important to note that when I post photos of my own body, these photos are less likely to be flagged or removed than when I post photos of fat bodies, disabled bodies, bodies of colour, queer bodies, and aging bodies. I have learned these facts through experiments with my own social media.

Whenever I mention sex work, I am silenced.

When the sex worker happens to use substances, it is silenced even faster.

Whenever I show body hair, I am silenced.

When that body hair is on a body of colour, it is silenced even faster.

Whenever I show fatness, I am silenced.

When that fatness is showing signs of aging, it is silenced even faster.

Whenever I show intimacy between lovers, I am silenced.

If that intimacy is queer, it is silenced even faster.

Bodies existing outside of what is deemed palatable receive fewer likes, and significantly less views, based on what the algorithm allows to appear on Explore pages within the Instagram app, and often appear on my “restricted content” list. Videos of myself dancing also appear on my “restricted content” list if I dare to touch my body erotically, as though my body is not mine to touch and share how I please. 

The “restricted content list” is a relatively new feature on Instagram, where you can see  a list of which of your posts have been flagged as problematic and why. This list of posts is then used as evidence for “why a profile can’t be recommended,” which means that no matter what hashtags you use or how good your content is, your posts will never come up on anyone’s feed unless they search you specifically. This is harmful for people using this platform for business and for artists striving to share their work and build an audience, because gaining followers and having your content seen is difficult if the algorithm is blocking it from going anywhere. The only way to fix this so that your profile can be seen is to either contest the flagging (which usually doesn’t change anything) or remove the posts that are named “problematic” and wait for the algorithm to re-evaluate your profile.

Taylor Neal. Mosco, Unraveling Series, 2022. Photo series sponsored by Bonjibon.

F*ck The Algorithm

And yet, we simply cannot stop sharing.

We need to see ourselves, our bodies, in the spaces we have access to, not gate-kept behind entrance fees, in art galleries, or on porn websites, run by the same powers controlling our algorithms. In creating a space online dedicated to the expression of free beauty, my intention is to remain available and accessible as a means of safety and support in our collective journey toward reclaiming our bodies, regardless of how the shadow-bans minimize my audience.

I continue to find new and creative ways to share my work within the criteria, and yet I feel a little pang of frustration each time I airbrush the nipples from my photos. Free beauty is meant to refer to the lack of concept, or imposed standard of meaning, and yet to cover nipples is to implicate inherent meaning upon them. But, this platform is what we’ve got for now by way of accessible art dissemination, and so I find ways to share more authentic versions of my work elsewhere, and use Instagram to re-direct folks there. Because we cannot stop doing this work, creating this art, pushing back against the hegemonic standard of acceptable beauty with the bold realness of how it actually looks to be human.

We cannot stop finding beauty in the crevices of the rocks, the way the juice of the pomegranate mirrors the body, and the folds of our skin. Our connection to nature is where free beauty is found, and this unfiltered, raw, organic beauty is the essence of what makes us human. We cannot stop sharing the authentic experience of our bodies, their nuances, and their unique interpretations of life, because we cannot stop expressing our humanity. We cannot stop creating spaces for safety, recognition, and representation. We find ways to work together within the algorithm and to beat it at its own game by using type tricks and blurring our images, or we grind against it together.

So, uplift your favourite artists and share their work. Notice the patterns you see in the algorithms and work to confront them. Call it out when you sense wrongness, in the words of Sara Ahmed.[2]

We must not stop sharing, even if we are eternally shadow banned, because even when it feels hopeless, someone will stumble upon your page and feel seen by your art.

This feature can be found in our third print issue with the theme of Censorship. You can find a copy here.

[1] Kant, I. . The Critique Of Judgement. (1790).

[2] Ahmed, S. . Living A Feminist Life. (Duke University Press, 2017).

Sand after sand, the oyster will cry: Anatomy of an Oyster by Rita Puig-Serra

Rita Puig-Serra. Anatomy of an Oyster, 2023. Courtesy of PhMuseum and the artist.

By Irene Bernardi

“Mother-of-pearl” is one of the most precious and rare types of pearls.

The Italian writer and poet Franco Buffoni crafted a unique poem to tell the story of how a grain of sand becomes this incredible and luminous pearl:


[…]
If you photograph the sand and then magnify it

To three hundred times

Each grain reveals itself as unique:

One looks like Saturn without rings,

Another is Venus, then Mars with colors,

Jupiter that stays under the fingernail

And Uranus that falls

Into the right oyster

And makes it cry

Becomes in a hundred years

Mother’s pearl.[1]

Into the poetic and scientific imagination of the Italian writer, a small and insignificant grain of sand — after a long journey through the planets of our solar system — accidentally slips inside an oyster. This lucky encounter will produce a small but precious pearl that “[…] becomes, in a hundred years, Mother’s pearl.” Anatomy of an Oyster — the solo show by Catalan artist Rita Puig-Serra — is a journey inside the artist’s consciousness that, through the metaphor of analyzing an oyster, tells the story of her personal experience with family abuse.

Rita Puig-Serra. Installation view of the exhibition Anatomy of an Oyster, 2024, PhMuseum Lab, Bologna
Courtesy of PhMuseum and the artist.


Walking inside the small space of PhMuseum Lab in Bologna, are some of the photographs realized by the artist creating a sort of labyrinth, recreating an old installation made by the Italo-Brasilian architect Lina Bo Bardi for the Museum of Art in Sāo Paulo in 1970[2].

The artworks of Puig-Serra as the design of Bo Bardi are placed in clear glass panels, attached to concrete blocks: the exhibition’s layout fades, letting the visitor choose the order in which to see the works. The concrete blocks are as heavy as the words that the artist wants to tell to an absent mother during her childhood. That small insidious grain slowly takes shape and grows, pressing inside the oyster, much like the artist’s thoughts, words, and desires, which, as she grows, can no longer ignore the pearl of fears that have been with her since childhood.

Rita Puig-Serra. Installation view of the exhibition Anatomy of an Oyster, 2024, PhMuseum Lab, Bologna
Courtesy of PhMuseum and the artist.

Rita Puig-Serra. Installation view of the exhibition Anatomy of an Oyster, 2024, PhMuseum Lab, Bologna
Courtesy of PhMuseum and the artist.

Emerging from the labyrinth, a series of photographs are lined on the wall. Some depict the lengthy process of extracting mother-of-pearl, while others showcase the artist’s childhood from her archive, complete with phrases and memories. This is the journey of Puig-Serra inside the process to extract her deep memory of the abuses.

“The oyster will produce layers of nacre around the nucleus.”

This delicate narrative unfolds like a puzzle of memories: analog photographs from her childhood are interwoven with descriptions of the anatomy of an oyster and memories. The ghosts of her family are both visible and hidden within this narrative, such as old photos in which the artist shows some details of the person who abused her. Isolated on one side of the exhibition space is a letter recreated by the artist, written to her best friend, and then burned in a park. Injustices, abuses, and silences experienced are kept inside a small oyster on the sea floor for years when finally the mother-of-pearl sees the light of truth.

Rita Puig-Serra. Installation view of the exhibition Anatomy of an Oyster, 2024, PhMuseum Lab, Bologna
Courtesy of PhMuseum and the artist.


How small and insignificant can a grain of sand be compared to a planet? What are the chances that this grain can transform into mother-of-pearl? Anatomy of an Oyster gathers all these seemingly insignificant childhood events of Rita Puig-Serra to explore pain and abuse. It’s a self-analysis that takes shape in the anatomy of an oyster, which is studied, analyzed, photographed, and assimilated, only to be removed—just like the memories of the Catalan artist.

Rita Puig-Serra (Spain, 1985) is a photographer living in Barcelona. After a humanistic education and a Master’s degree in comparative literature, she studied graphic design and photography.


The project Anatomy of an Oyster was released by Witty Books in 2023. The exhibition is part of PhMuseum International Photo Festival place from 12 to 15 September 2024 in Bologna, Italy.

The PhMuseum Lab will be open 4pm-7pm during the Festival days in Via Paolo Fabbri 10/2a.


For more information about PhMuseum International Photo Festival, visit their website and Instagram.

For more information about Rita Puig-Serra and her exhibition, visit her website and Instagram.

[1] trad. from Franco Buffoni, Betelgeuse e altre poesie scientifiche, 2021, Mondadori, Milano

[2] Moffit E., How Lina Bo Bardi Built An Art World Without Walls, 14/04/2020, www.frieze.com

Surveillance Eyes: In Conversation with Harley Morman

Southern Alberta Art Gallery – HARLEY MORMAN: DON’T DREAM IT, BE IT.

Don’t Dream It, Be It

Harley Morman

Southern Alberta Art Gallery

May 11 – June 22, 2024  

Interview by Migueltzinta Solís

There’s something about Harley Morman’s work that makes you want to sink your teeth into it. I’ve been close friends with Harley for seven years – in the good times and the bad – and I always look forward to being transported to the colorful, gummy world that is his trans, queer creative practice. We are at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (SAAG) during Lethbridge Pride, a few hours after riding together in the parade as part of our local queerdo bicycle club. After what I felt were too many cheering children, it feels good to bask in the simmering glow of plastic, rubber, and knitted objects that comprise Harley Morman’s solo exhibition, Don’t Dream It, Be It.

The exhibition space, once a library, is transformed by an overlay of trans-metaphysical subliminality. Coloured tape crisscrosses the hardwood floor, mirrors hang from above on bright plastic chains, nearly life-size Perler bead self-portraits stand sentinel, and lenticular images wiggle and wink as you move through the room. A knitted rope sways from the ceiling, delightful yet foreboding, ending in a sprinkling of rainbow aquarium gravel. A full wall is dedicated to an enigmatic map made from strips of tape which, upon scrutiny, reveals itself to be a play diagram for the exhibition space. At the end of the room, behind the hanging mirrors, a scoreboard with a clock, and a rainbow collage of plastic figurines surveil the visitor. Inhabiting the space, one may feel that a game is in play, and one, in their queerness, might feel a looming sense of anxiety about what the game is, what the rules are, and whether they are getting it “right” or not.

Southern Alberta Art Gallery – HARLEY MORMAN: DON’T DREAM IT, BE IT

Migueltzinta Solís (MS): Hi, Harley. (laughs)

Harley Morman (HM): Hi, Miguel. (giggles)

MS: My first question is, who are the different Harleys in this show?

HM: There are a lot of different Harleys here. There’s the Harley that is me, that’s my body…

MS: That I’m talking to.

HM: Yes! That is speaking. There’s also a ton of different Harleys. The most literal Harley is the work that is called Megan number 3: Harley. It makes good narrative sense to say it was the last thing I finished for the exhibition. There are three Perler bead works in this show. Each one represents me at a different stage of my transition, which wasn’t the plan at first.

When I made the first Megan, the one that looks like it’s diving for a clock, it’s trying to catch something. That Megan was made during my MFA, for a specific project that was essentially me bouncing around the volleyball or balloon-like heads of teachers who I had worked with during my MFA. I had worked with Perler beads before, and at the time when I made that Megan, in 2016, it represented a new direction in terms of the size and complexity of the pieces in terms of the way I was using and interpreting colour information. I wanted to make more of them.

The second one is from 2019. That was made specifically for the Dunlop Art Gallery in an exhibition of queer art on the prairies. Each one that I make of these gets bigger and more complicated in terms of the pattern. The third one took a long time, much longer than they normally do, even though I’ve gotten quick at it. Although I’m slower than I might have been before 2017 just because of the plaid jacket I’m wearing in the work.

MS: I like this idea of increasing complexity over multiple iterations or replications of Harley. First, I relate to the complexity of embodiment across these different replications of self. In simpler language you could say, “the complexity of gender,” but because of the temporal and kinetic questions here, it’s more than just about gender, which is why I love this work. I’m curious to hear you say more about the kinetic movements or actions that the figures are doing.

HM: Each of the figures represents an evolution of complexity of how I’m working with material. But in terms of the gestures that each of the figures is doing: each one plays off the others but could be understood as – I don’t want to use the word “evolution” – but is a direct response to the others. In the first one, I’m in a diving action pose because originally, I wanted to make it look like I was attempting to catch the heads that were coming at me, that were bouncing all over the place. They were up high and coming at the viewer and at the “me” that was on the wall. I wanted to make it look like that figure was an approximate life-size figure actively interacting with things. But if you look at my pose, the diving pose, it’s very much a responsive pose. I have my hands together, clasped with my wrists flattened, in the way that I [was] taught that you’re supposed to hit a volleyball. I never really knew how to hit a volleyball. It’s watching: that figure is looking up towards stuff but is very much in a ready pose but not in a “go” pose yet.

Southern Alberta Art Gallery – HARLEY MORMAN: DON’T DREAM IT, BE IT

In the second one, where my hands are up, I was imagining something akin to a volleyball serve– there’s no reason that I’m using volleyball as a metaphor here aside from the fact that it was a sport that as a girl in the Midwest, I was often called upon to do in gym class. It was also a thing that because of my vision problems, I am hopeless at it and always have been. I’m just incapable of seeing things that come at me fast. Anyway, I was thinking of the jumping up action and reaching for something, so it looks a little bit more active. And here in this exhibition, it’s reaching up towards an alarm clock that’s sitting at the top of the wall.

In this third one, I wasn’t sure if it would quite “go” because it’s not an indoor sport: I’m riding a bicycle. The bicycle is rendered photographically except for the outline of the bike, which is in flat colors that are similar colors to the wall. And it’s away from the others. The other two on either side of the scoreboard are a symmetrical set. But this is something else, it’s away and it’s very much watching what’s happening.

MS: I love this hypothetical engagement with sport. (laughs)

HM: It is very much just an imaginary sport. The lines on the floor seem to be fooling people, and that’s what they’re supposed to do, but they’re not based on any sort of official diagram. I’m looking at the scoreboard with the mirrors, and there is a “basketball key,” a word that I only knew when I said that I wanted to make one. I think sport and activity in this show is not a literal reference to actual practices, it’s more a field on which actors play.

MS: As a gay villain, I, of course, love the language of “fooling people.” I love the queer permission you’ve given yourself to define the space into an imaginary sports field.

HM: Most of the time, a lot of the references really core to this show are not visible. And I don’t expect them to be and it’s not necessary. I wanted it to look like a gym. When I was in elementary school, the only reason I would participate in sports activities was when I was forced to. I was always sitting to the side and crafting. No matter where we were, whether we were indoors or outdoors, I was always finger knitting.

Southern Alberta Art Gallery – HARLEY MORMAN: DON’T DREAM IT, BE IT

MS: Is that what this is over here?

HM: Yeah. Kind of. It’s not literally the finger knitting that I made long ago. So, the finger knitting, you’re using your fingers as the pegs or needles so there’s only four of them. It ends up making super thin and loose rope that doesn’t have a really good use.

MS: In looking at this long rope of finger knitting that attaches to the ceiling with a carabiner and ends on the floor in a pool of…is that aquarium gravel?

HM: It’s aquarium gravel, some plastic gems, and a few beads. I wanted something to be on the ground. I wanted for this knit object to look at least as threatening as the original object felt to me. The aquarium gravel is there as an uncomfortable fall, instead of there being a cushy mat underneath. If you attempted to climb this, you’d fall onto an uncomfortable surface that would be super jabby.

MS: That would probably stick to your skin and leave those little indents.

HM: [The gravel] is its own security since it makes so much noise if you step on it. You can hear it, easily, outside of the gallery.

MS: I saw the diagram of the space on the wall, and the thing that made me realize that it was a diagram of the space – a bird’s eye view of the space – was the gravel there.

HM: The diagram is so provisional and messy looking; I don’t expect people to necessarily know what it’s supposed to be. Because my work tends to be so intricately thought out and polished, the way that this drawing came together was kind of uncomfortable. It’s weird to say that fully intuitive making can be uncomfortable, but it is. When I saw the court lines on the floor, they gave me permission to have the drawing on the wall be as wacky as I wanted it to be. I used a level to make the blue and pink lines on the background, but everything else was done by eye. When I look at it, in one sense it’s kind of a picture of how I’m dizzy, because it’s not straight or even kind of straight in a typical way. The whole thing is a bit rotated in exactly the way things are spinning for me all the time.   

…The drawing on the wall was hypothetically meant to represent a real thing but the drawings on the floor – the messiness and the realness, the solid, well-delineated care of the essentially imaginary sport – I feel that is an important dichotomy in terms of “realness” and “imagination.”   

         

MS: I feel like this is a map of how you move as well. I can visualize you moving in this set of blue lines much more easily than I can imagine myself. It represents you offering your own perspective and experience of a space and how you move through it.

HM: I love that. The lines did have a logic when I was making them. I forget what that was, and I don’t think it’s important. The important thing was some of them were meant to represent actual physical trajectories and others, sidelines, looking back and forth.

MS: You described this piece as important as well as uncomfortable.

HM: That is important, oh my gosh. I mean the drawing on the wall was hypothetically meant to represent a real thing but the drawings on the floor – the messiness and the realness, the solid, well-delineated care of the essentially imaginary sport – I feel that is an important dichotomy in terms of “realness” and “imagination.”

MS: I feel like there’s something in here about the difference between the hypothetical and embodied experience, and how it relates to understanding “the rules of the world.”

HM: A lot of my past work has been concerned with the rules and conventions of gallery spaces and institutional spaces. I think part of what I have a hard time articulating is just the fact these are good visual metaphors for the difference between the smooth and the striated.

Southern Alberta Art Gallery – HARLEY MORMAN: DON’T DREAM IT, BE IT

The Scoreboard is one of the things that I have shown before. It was in the iteration of the show that was at the Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA). When it was at the AGA, it was much more prominent because of the lighting, and the color of the walls, and the way the space was set up in general. It was essentially the focus of the entire room and it’s not necessarily that prominent here. It reads not as the most important thing that you see upon entering but just as one of many. The Scoreboard was made to only be legible when you stand inside the arc of the mirrors. If you look in a mirror, you could see not only yourself but also the scoreboard and things reflected the right way round. The clock is running the right way in the reflection, you can read the mirrored letters that are on The Scoreboard.

Southern Alberta Art Gallery – HARLEY MORMAN: DON’T DREAM IT, BE IT

I love when people take selfies in the reflection, so that things are the right way around. Because generally The Scoreboard is incredibly ambiguous – it is not, and I don’t want it to be, apparent what it’s tracking. I think of it actively, and I know it doesn’t necessarily read like this directly because on one level it is very colorful and full of glittery beads and it’s shiny. But I think of it as a threatening piece, in the same way I think of gross, dirty climbing things as also being very threatening just by their existence. It’s just the idea that you might be tracked or that something about your interaction will be seen and could be accounted for.

MS: It’s a looming metric.

HM: Yeah, exactly! I mean in terms of transness, which was obviously a huge thing when I was making it back in 2021, it’s like competition as a bodily metaphor, but also a representation of tracking in terms of the timelines of change, of transition, and of growth and change in general.

MS: I think we both know that within trans experience and trans societies, there is a weird competitiveness. Whose transition is the best, who’s doing it right.

HM: It’s one of the things everyone knows, and nobody likes, but also you end up participating in it. I often find myself, or parts of my brain, echoing this hypercompetitive [sense]…I don’t think I necessarily have good things to say about that. It’s like tracking bad behaviour, bad feelings in general. This is very different from the affect that I think this show has for most people. I want it to, when you really think about it or look at it in the right way, look not happy but kind of threatening and scary.

MS: I definitely see it as sinister. A lot of people are like, “It’s playful”, “It’s a game”, “It’s a fun thing,” and “Kids will love it.”

HM: Yeah, and it is, and kids do absolutely love it. And I love that they love it, but also that’s only one reading of it and it’s not the most interesting reading of it.

MS: I think it’s interesting in the context of recent trans history, how we are from the late 90s, early 2000s, certainly in terms of FTMs and trans men, which is language that isn’t even cool anymore. We had Buck Angel and Chaz Bono and there were these metrics of passing and who had the most masculinization result. And then, of course, more recently there has been a shift away from that but now we have metrics of who has the better politics. It’s like whose is the best gender.

HM: But the gender isn’t necessarily based on hairiness. The gender is like a different, less physical aesthetic, but a politicized aesthetic.

MS: Hypothetical gender. Who has the most evolved gender and self-contextualization.

HM: Oh my god.

MS: Like the metric is different but there’s still a metric, but what even is it?

HM: In a way a person could think of it as being worse because it’s wider, and there are so many more expectations because transition is very much hypervisible at the moment, and because it’s so visible, the one who is undergoing transition is accountable to an even wider group of people.

As I’m standing over here, through the arc of the mirrors I’m looking at the lenticulars over there and thinking about how the stripes look like bars in a way. Some of them, not all of them.

Southern Alberta Art Gallery – HARLEY MORMAN: DON’T DREAM IT, BE IT

MS: Because my work has been about trans self-imaging, I’m curious about the way the mirror’s been working in here and the way time is part of that. Because there doesn’t seem to be mirrors without clocks in here.

HM: I like the mirrors with the references to time because of how it implicates a person and their body at a specific moment. It’s hard to not realize that you’re a viewer, which I insist on hitting people over the head with. I think there are considerably less mirrors in this show than there are in most of my shows. What are they reflecting? It’s kind of like going back in time, in a way. I feel like it’s important to have mirrors with the lenticular stuff because they do a weird thing with simultaneity and travel.

I’ve heard from some trans people who come into the show and see the lenticulars, that they make them feel weirded out and uncomfortable. Because I started transitioning so late and had already been practicing for years, it was not even a thought that I could or might want to be secretive about it. It seems like the obvious thing to do for me at this point in my life and career, to be completely fine with having my old photos interlaced.

MS: Transness has different generations that are not necessarily attached to chronological time. How I feel you and I are of a similar trans generation even though you started your transition later in life than I did, and our transitions happened within distinct decades of trans history and discourse. And it’s very different than the other generations that are simultaneously unfolding.

Southern Alberta Art Gallery – HARLEY MORMAN: DON’T DREAM IT, BE IT

HM: Yeah, that makes sense in terms of me because you’re always teasing me by saying how my gender is very anachronistic like my gender is a time period. I’m kind of curious about how my students might interpret the lenticulars. I hope that at least some of them might think that this was naughty. (laughs) Like it was somehow transgressive to show them blending into each other instead of a binary on/off situation.

MS: I certainly find these works to be very transgressive. As a completely immersive space, I sense the question, “Am I doing it right?”, on a societal level. “Is this how it’s done?”

HM: Yes, that exact thing. That nebulous sense of anxiety about “Am I being watched?” and “Is this okay?” is really important.

MS: “Is this how you play the game?” “Am I winning?” “Is this scoring?”

HM: (laughs) Yeah. The fact that it’s in a gallery, in an art space considered in relation to not trans but art communities, which are their own kind of weird hyper-competitiveness.

MS: To go back to lenticulars, and unease, I would say that in their layered-ness, discomfort, and unsettling-ness, they express the embodied experience, that is both uncomfortable and really rich, of being a person stretched across different points of time, mapped through gender pinpoints, kind of like that map over there.

HM: Oh my gosh, I love that. I think that kind of temporal experience of aging and of thinking about yourself…because I think, or hope, everyone would probably think or feel this like they’ve been several different people since they were that age. In the past 25 years, I’ve been a bunch of different people. Some are probably a lot more important than technically whichever gender I might be perceived as. I feel like aside from transness, the depiction of aging might be relatable more generally.

Southern Alberta Art Gallery – HARLEY MORMAN: DON’T DREAM IT, BE IT

This little best girl and best boy (referring to stickers on the gallery wall display) is one of my favorite things in the show. It’s just one of the scholastic stickers and both exist as separate stickers and all I did was just put them together and they worked perfectly. I feel like the scholastic stickers in general are rich in terms of references and material and lend themselves to turning into lenticulars. This cluster wall doesn’t get a lot of attention, but one of things that I like is the big clock. This wall – the eyes that are at the important points, the twelve, the three and the six, etc, are all eyes from stickers. This wall has just a bunch of other references to surveillance and stuff.

MS: Metrics of performance and surveillance. Can we just touch on that? (Referring to the front page of a notebook with handwriting displayed on wall.)

HS: Yeah, that’s an actual page from a notebook because I said I’m a keeper, I do have all the paperwork I’ve produced throughout school and after that because I keep everything. I feel really justified in it because it’s coming in handy, repeatedly.    

MS: Given that the paper refers to Megan’s rules, have you been following Megan’s rules?

HM: I can’t remember what Megan’s rules are. “This is a notebook, my notebook. Don’t bother it or you’ll have to answer to me.” I think that I’ve totally virtually destroyed Megan’s notebook by removing the cover.

MS: “P.S. Have fun”, is that what it says at the bottom?

HM: I think it probably does.

MS: Was there more you wanted to say about this wall?

HM: No, I just wanted to say, “Surveillance eyes!” (Points at lenticulars of eyes.) I just wanted to point them out.

MS: Transness continues to be so surveilled in terms of policy, particularly in Albertan trans and queer school and health policy right now. I think this show expresses the metaphysical experience of that kind of surveillance that is part of trans experience.

HM: Like what are the psychic implications of surveillance that trans people put themselves under before transitioning, or just in general, because of gender feelings.

MS: Yeah totally, think about in medical transition when you go on hormones, you have to do the experimental dose and you self-surveil as part of that. There’s an expectation to self-surveil.

HM: Yeah, it’s a requirement.

For more of Harley’s dizzy delights, follow him on IG: @Harley_Morman.
For more queerdo adventures that include Harley & Migueltzinta, visit his website here.