The Gift of Time: In Conversation with Holly Timpener

Holly Timpener, Our Bodies in the Pandemic, Montreal, Feminist Media Studio, 2021. Richard Mugwaneza.

By Brody Weaver

Holly Timpener is a non-binary performance artist, facilitator, and PhD Candidate in the Interdisciplinary Studies program at Concordia University. Their extensive body of performance art addresses themes of trauma, resistance, and transformation, particularly as they overlap with their own lived experiences. Making use of the body, duration, and minimal materials, there is something classic and pure about the performance work that Timpener creates. In Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia), where I have been living since 2018, this branch of performance art is less common than it’s more hybridized and interdisciplinary forms.

What draws me to Holly’s work are the containers they create through collaborative performance-as-research projects. Discussed in depth in this interview, Timpener has brought together more than 50 trans and non-binary artists to create performance art addressing trauma, gender, and transformation, and has managed to foster intentional spaces for their creation and reception across physical and digital space.

Pi*llOry, cleverly appropriating it’s name from a medieval device designed to secure one’s body in place for public humiliation and abuse, took place through five iterations in Toronto, Ontario (and online) between 2019 and 2020.

Epicenter Revolutions, an ongoing project forming the core of Timpener’s work as a PhD student, began in 2021 and has featured five iterations across Montréal (Quebec), Saint John (New Brunswick), Kumeyaay (San Diego), Poznań (Poland), Berlin (Germany), Mexico City (Mexico), and was recently manifested as the exhibition Epicenter Revolutions: Self-Documenting Internal Transformations at Eastern Bloc in partnership with Fierté Montréal (Montréal Pride).

I met Holly in the way most great connections are formed–a mutual friend saying, “Hey, I think you’d like what this person is doing. You should talk to them,” and for this, I have Grey Piitaapan Muldoon to thank.

This interview transcription is an edited version of Holly and I’s two-hour conversation, which took place on the morning of June 20th, 2025. Note that Epicenter Revolutions: Self-Documenting Internal Transformations is discussed here before the exhibition had taken place.

* * * * *

Brody:                                                                                                                                    

To get us started, I would love to hear about how you began creating performance art. What was your catalyst?

Holly:                                                                                                                                     

I danced and I went to theatre school, but I have a real problem with authority. Autonomy is a big value in my life, and I felt like it wasn’t being met in a theatre and dance context. I was searching for something where I could still perform and meld my life into the performance so that they weren’t so separate.

In 2011, I met Sylvie Tourangeau, who is one of the core members of the Montreal-based performance group called the TouVA Collective, with Victoria Stanton and Anne Bérubé. Sylvia was doing a performance workshop on Toronto Island, and it changed my life. She has been my mentor ever since. Some of the things I’ll be talking about today, I note back to this workshop, because it created my foundation as a performance artist and facilitator. When I opened the door to enter the workshop, I was hit by a wall of magic. I joined the circle with Sylvie and the other participants, and I was ready to learn skills. I was ready to learn technique, which comes from my theatre background. Sylvia’s teachings are open to letting people extend their life experiences into the art that they create. I wasn’t ready for the kind of radical openness she gave me, this permission to look inside and trust that I knew what I needed to do.

Holly Timpener, Trans Bible Readings, Saint John, Epicenter Three, 2022. Corey Negus.

Brody:                                                                                                              

A lot of people have stories of an influential teacher, mentor, or role model who changed their path forever–it’s informative to know who influences artists in their early stages. It’s clear to me that you are a performance artist before you are an academic, and I mean that as a compliment.

Holly:

I take it as one.

Brody:

What you’re saying about performance art as an accessible entry point for theorizing about lived experience and embodiment is so powerful and real. That’s its special power, and what makes performance a unique form of art.

I want to ask you about how that formative workshop experience influenced your approach to the collaborative projects you’ve organized, called Pi*llOry and Epicenter Revolutions. Can you describe these projects for readers who may not be familiar? They’re quite expansive with multiple iterations, locations, and participating artists.

Holly:                                                                                                                                        

My curiosity and techniques for performance art developed through taking part in workshops, constantly in group settings, and I found that is where I grew. Right before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was craving queer and trans community, and performance community, those spaces of trust. I’ve been out for most of my life, and my experiences within these workshops were with queer people, and that’s how I developed trust and deepened relationships. Because of my history with trauma, I wanted to understand the relationship between queerness and trauma, which I had been questioning in my own art practice. Entering my master’s program, I wanted to further understand the relationship between performance and trauma, so I created Pi*llOry. Pi*llOry was an invitation for queer folks to perform trauma to shift it into something else.

I was curious how performance can help form queer networks of healing. There were five iterations of this project, with the last being online, and all of the artists who participated were shifting trauma in different ways. While I was researching, I became interested in how performance art transforms the self, not physically, but internally. Transforming trauma, and queer trauma specifically, has an impact on our internal sensations and internal experience. I was looking for existing resources focusing on the intersection of performance art and internal transformation, but I couldn’t find anything. Of course, external transformation is a huge part of performance art. They go hand in hand.

As Pi*llOry was coming to an end, I was in love with working collaboratively and feeling so fulfilled. These collaborations and groups helped get me through COVID–we were there for each other, online, and we were checking in on each other throughout the whole process. From the first iteration, we always kept in contact, and performers from previous iterations would attend the later iterations, and it was a real family. That was wonderful.

Leena Raudvee, Teetering on the Edge, Toronto Media Arts Centre, Pi*llOry One, 2019. Aedan Crooke.

I wanted to create something that could address internal transformations through performance. Thinking back to my first workshop with Sylvie, something we said every day, multiple times a day after a performance, experience, or what have you–“I was transformed.” All the time. How was that? How was that experience for you? “I was transformed.” It’s funny, looking back on it. It could be so cliche, and perhaps it was. I have no problems with cliches. If it was said so much, why could I not read anything about it? Internal transformations initiated through performance art have helped me learn so much about my own gender identity, and I suspect that other trans and non-binary artists have had the same experience.

My response was to create the project Epicenter Revolutions so that we could create a family again, and continue the family created in Pi*llOry. It started in 2021, with the last iteration happening in 2024. The project travelled to Poznan, Poland, Berlin, Germany, and Mexico City, and some participants were in Guadalajara, Mexico, and San Diego, California. We were lucky to have participants all over the world who have different experiences of gender, politically and personally, which affect their gender and internal transformations. A lot of the work addressed trauma in different ways, so it has remained a through-line between the two projects.

Brody:                                                                                                       

Jumping back to Pi*llOry, queer performers invited queer audiences who knew they would be witnessing work intended to shift trauma. You created a semi-closed space where the performers and the audience are signing on to something specific. I think that’s key to understanding the success of Pi*llOry, and in turn Epicenter. We’ve all had experiences where we are moving around an art gallery and encounter an intense artwork that we were not prepared to see. This brings forward a conversation about emotional safety and “trigger warnings,” if you will. This is a common topic in art spaces today, to which I think a lot of old school feminists and performance artists might say, “I don’t really care about any of that. The work is meant to be an affront.” At the same time, I think the container that you’re creating is intentional and wise. Can you talk more about your practice of inviting participants and witnesses into your projects and how you approach creating that container?

Claudia Edwards, Regenesis, Pi*llOry Two, Kensington Market, Toronto, 2019. Chris Blanchnot.

Holly:                                                                                                                          

I call myself a facilitator, but it is important to me to act without any kind of hierarchy. I consider myself an equal participant in all the projects. I separate myself as the academic who has the opportunity and privilege granted to me by an institution to act as the facilitator. In both Pi*llOry and Epicenter, I put out calls for participation through social media and people who participated often helped me disseminate the call. Since performance art is quite a niche category, it was important for me that anybody who wanted to participate could be in the project, regardless of whether or not they have performed before. I never asked for a CV.

Each iteration is structured differently because it has to suit the needs of each individual. There’s a lot of flexibility and creativity in the ways the journey might manifest leading up to the event itself. I try to facilitate in an open way so that everyone feels included and encouraged to participate in the way that works for them, while maintaining a sense of community and trust. This helps the community grow and has allowed us to become close to one another. When queer folks come together and are invited to talk about their experiences, that container holds us.                                                                                                                                                                           

The second important part is the invitation–who are we going to invite? What I’ve asked the participants of both projects to engage in is deep and sensitive work. Throughout our meetings together, we talked about traumas, our experiences with gender and developed a container of trust. How do we transfer that into inviting witnesses? The difference between an audience and a witness becomes important in this context. Where the event takes place is equally important, choosing not theatres, but locations that would instigate an environment of containment and intimacy. There is a sensitivity within performance art of knowing that the witness holds responsibility, and the spaces that we chose were important in creating that. In Pi*llOry, there wasn’t a huge call out for an audience–we invited queer witnesses, we invited people personally. To witness actively, rather than “You’re here to perform for me,” we’re creating spaces where we’re allowing each other to embody something that’s very personal.

Racquel Rowe, Washing Rice, Pi*llOry Two, Kensington Market, Toronto, 2019. Chris Blanchnot.

Brody:                                                                                                            

Thanks for breaking that down on the back end of facilitating Pi*llOry and Epicenter. It’s valuable to document the processes that create events and showcases so that we can continually learn from one another. What you’ve shared makes me think of how these projects that you’re organizing are situated in a rich lineage of queer and trans performance culture: cabaret, drag, music, and all the oral and performative traditions that we have. Historically, who has known that these things are occurring? Who knows where to go, and when? Beyond getting the right people in the room, who shows up can have severe consequences, for example, in the case of police raids of bars and other performance spaces. In Pi*llOry, the iterations happened in Toronto, right?

Holly:                                                                                                           

Yeah, it was all in Toronto. Except for the online iteration, which was a collaboration with GLAD Day Bookstore (the queer bookstore in Toronto), because they were administering a micro-grant program for artists to be able to continue their practices during the COVID-19 Pandemic. They were our hub, and they were able to support me with the technical aspects of the online iteration, which I am very thankful for. The artists were all in different places – Santiago Tamayo Soler and myself were in Montreal, Aisha Bentham was in Toronto, and Rahki was in Mexico.

Brody:                                                                                                            

From my perspective as someone who began medical transition during the pandemic, I witnessed and participated in a resurgence of trans culture and embodiment that happened during that time, primarily and often by necessity, in online spaces. Both performance-as-research projects we’re discussing had at least one iteration purely online, and while someone might see that pivot as a compromise, I think that it reflects the moment in trans and non-binary culture from which they emerged.

Epicenter appears to be more complex, with iterations happening in different places across the globe. I feel like you built capacity with Pi*llOry and worked on a grander scale with Epicenter. Can you talk more about Epicenter, and break down what it was like to take your approach to different cultural and political contexts?

Holly:                                                                                                         

Epicenter is different from Pi*llOry, particularly with how it concerns the witness and act of witnessing. I realized in my own practice: I don’t need a witness to perform. When I perform, I enter into a state of awareness with a specific intention, engaging in a kind of internal listening. I don’t need anybody to witness me to know that I have switched into a state of awareness, turning my attention focus on my own sensations.

Part of the invitation for Epicenter asked the participating artists to likewise turn inwards during performances, to listen to what is happening inside of themselves. This raises a question: do we need witnesses? In Pi*llOry, we would take turns performing one after another, aside from a few durational pieces, but in Epicenter, the works are explicitly durational. We performed for four to six hours alongside one another, engaged in internal listening in a shared space. Even though we performed individually, we came to the realization that we were also each other’s witnesses.

Holly Timpener, One Piece at a Time, Montreal, Epicenter Revolutions Two, 2022. Richard Mugwaneza.

Several Epicenter interactions took place during COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions, so the question of witnesses was concerned with safety and minimizing transmission of the virus as well. The first Epicenter took place at the Montreal LGBTQ+ Centre, a large space that allowed for physical distance between performers and attendees. At this iteration, we had invigilators, which is somebody who stays with a performer throughout a durational work to watch out for physical hazards, dangers, and to help maintain our immuno-accessibility protocols.

In second Epicenter iteration, we performed in our own physical spaces: Aquarius Funkk performed in their house in Guadalajara, Grey Piitaapan Muldoon performed in a studio space in Halifax, joey eddy performed in a gallery space, and I performed in a garage. We were connected through a shared video call, not publicly available online, but projected in each place for IRL witnesses to see the different performances. We invited people to attend who we knew and trusted, but it became more about witnessing one another than having external witnesses, or an audience, so to speak. Engaged in intense inward and collective listening, we were not trying to sell seats. It wasn’t part of the process.

Grey Piitaapan Muldoon, Road Songs for Fugitives, Halifax, Epicenter Revolutions Two, 2022. Grey Piitapaan Muldoon.

However, in Poznań, possibly because there are so many people and because I was working out of a queer cafe during my time there, we did promote it more publicly in the cafe itself. If anybody wants to go to a queer hub in Poland, it’s Poznań. One of the reasons I wanted to travel with Epicenter was my curiosity about how people’s lived experiences with politics in different parts of the world have affected their gender identities and gender experiences. The participating artists and I spoke about how we felt safe inviting people from this cafe, and I had been there writing my dissertation, so I got to know some of the regulars, some of whom came to witness each performance. I think this pivot speaks to the reality that queers know how to witness queers. We know how to enter a space and understand that performing requires a great deal of care, and often we know this without being told. It’s a lovely thing about queer community that touches me and has touched both Pi*llOry and Epicenter. It felt like we were extending our family a little bit.

Brody:                                                                                                               

The durational aspect of Epicenter is important, where you’re all performing alongside one another for an extended period. There are many art forms that break down the divide between art and life so severely that it can become hard to distinguish between the two, and durational performance is definitely one of them. It creates heightened senses, intense and sometimes painful physical sensations, and a tension between time and the body which likewise occur in different creative, spiritual, and even sexual practices. I’m curious to hear more about the relationship between the subject of internal transformation and its chosen expression in durational performance: what do you think are the ingredients that make it particularly suited for addressing the subject of internal transformation?

Holly:                                                                                                              

I think one thing that often gets muddied is durational performance and endurance performance art. Duration has to do with time. There has to be a curiosity about what time will do to your intention. In endurance performance, it is more about pushing boundaries and borders, especially within the body, which time can influence but is not necessarily a foundational element. Over the past few years, it’s rare for me to perform anything that’s longer than four hours. I’m drawn to it because extending time pushes your boundaries of awareness and pushes your capacity to understand and meet yourself. You get bored, you get tired, you get disinterested, and you ask yourself: what is it that is making me keep going?

That is what I think is interesting, when you hit that border of, “Why am I continuing this?” That’s when magic happens, and for myself and some of the participating artists, that’s when internal transformation happens. That’s when you start uncovering new things about yourself. Time is a gift.

I connect internal transformation to gender identity because people who do not conform to binaries of gender are constantly performing different selves to fit into different social spaces, which in turn affects one’s internal sensations. It happens fast, and it’s not necessarily something that always feels pleasant. It’s tiring. It’s not something that you are often able to spend time investigating. Despite how valuable time is for self-discovery, we don’t often ask ourselves: What is this doing to me? What are these internal shifts? How is this affecting my experience of self? To experience the gift of time permits you to uncover aspects of yourself, some of which you’ll want to keep and others you’ll want to leave behind. At the same time, you might find power in meeting the edges of your own boredom, frustration, and exhaustion. It’s not always an amazing, “A-hah!” moment. It can be more like, “I have something inside of me that’s special, that’s mine, that’s unique, that’s powerful.” That can be harnessed for yourself and to support the community of people around you who are going through their own internal transformations. After doing this for five hours, radical empathy for yourself and the community of performers can rise up. Hopefully, that empathy can be transferred into other spaces beyond performance and Epicenter.

Aquarius Funkk, Untitled, Guadalajara, Mexico. Epicenter Revolutions Two, 2022. Sky Vermanei.

Beyond creating a durational performance, Epicenter was about embodying aspects of your gender identity. This was very different than Pi*llOry, where embodied trauma was the subject. In Pi*llOry, the invitation was not to relive, re-perform, or re-traumatize yourself. It was to use the space of performance to pick at and pull apart an aspect of a traumatic experience to intentionally shift it into something new. In Epicenter, each artist’s curiosity created their own performance intentions from their lived experience of gender.

Brody:                                                                                                             

What do you think was the result of specifically looking at internal transformations of gender for the participants? It’s likely impossible to summarize with so many different artists, but if you have any examples or highlights to share, I would love to hear them.

Holly:                                                                                                            

There was an artist in the Poznań iteration of Epicenter, Pipeq Szczęsnowicz, who performed a work where she had a trunk of clothes in front of her and wore noise-cancelling headphones. With each song that played into her ears, she would change her outfit and dance to the song. They were looking at performing different selves, and how you perform different selves, but rather than in the external world of others’ perceptions, they were celebrating the multiple selves within them that were all beautiful. Once their performance had concluded, they shared with me that they did not want to stop dancing. They did not want it to end. Through the performance, they realized that they did not get to have that amount of joy and fun in other parts of their life.  I think for her, through this celebration of herself, she came to honour those parts of herself and recognize the need to find ways to continue that beyond the performance itself.

Pipeq Szczesnowicz, Untitled, Poznan, Poland, Epicenter Six, 2023. Mattia Spich.

Damaris Baker was a performer in the first Epicenter, and Damaris has had a long journey with their physical appearance as a non-binary person. They have a beard while still having a somewhat femme exterior. During COVID, they were diagnosed with breast cancer, so they were really interested in death and how it could relate to an internal listening of gender. In their performance, they had mounds of dirt, cat claws, and hair. They glued the hair onto their body, and they were singing to dirt and bones, shaking with this exterior shell of dirt and hair. They wrote about how duration was a big part of that work, and how it confronted feelings of shame. I remember they shared their intention to add hair to their body to resist others’ discomfort in their interview: “You don’t want to see hair on my body. Well, I’m going to glue more on, and how do you like that?” They told a story about a passerby who had told her that she should stay at home: “Why would you leave the house with that hair on your face?” Gluing hair on her body was a way to help lay that shame to rest.

In the fourth iteration of Epicenter, Eva Gonzales-Ruskiewicz, who performed in San Diego, also talked about experiences with shame. They did this piece where they felted an outline of their body onto pieces of a trans flag, and they decided to be topless. They felt shame during the performance, this feeling of “I’m not trans enough, my body is not going to be seen as trans enough. I’m working with this trans flag, but I have a chest that doesn’t signify trans.” In their reflection and interview, they described how they invited a few close friends and their partner as witnesses, and emphasized how they held space and witnessed as an act of care. This, they felt, helped them transform that shame through feeling held by their community.

Eva Gonzalez, Rewilding, San Diego, CA, Epicenter Four, 2022. Naomi Nadreau.

Those are some wonderful examples of how internal transformations about gender manifested through durational performance in Epicenter. Often, failure or unexpected issues can come up during a performance, and while this may feel uncomfortable at first, working through it and sticking with failure makes it easier to confront failure in everyday life.

Brody:                                                                                                              

The examples you’ve relayed make me think of something you shared earlier–queer and trans people want to speak about their experiences, especially in a safe environment. I have a background as a facilitator as well, but primarily in social and community programming where direct conversation and verbal engagement are more common. When I’m facilitating in those spaces, I notice that there are always some attendees who don’t participate or who are not being given the right environment to serve their full presence. They might be having a hard time finding their voice or the right moment to jump in. Hearing about how you utilize performance as an arts-based method for community building and empowerment, creating the conditions for queer and trans people to see and be seen outside of the constraints of language, highlights performance as a more accessible and neurodivergent way to engage groups of people. It sounds like you’ve been able to help people find their power, and that’s an amazing gift to share. I think you should be proud of that.

Holly:                                                                                                         

Thank you. Beyond accessibility, it is meaningful that the form of performance we’re engaging in Epicenter and Pi*llOry is not a solo endeavour: it is intentionally collaborative. I was gifted with early experiences of learning about performance art and myself through collaborative settings in workshops and community settings. Sometimes, I think that my performance-as-research projects are a selfish act–I crave that community, I need it, and I’m doing it for myself as well. This doesn’t just go one way. The artists in both projects have given me a space where I get to talk about my experiences and work through traumas, questions, and curiosities. I would never have been able to do that without each and everyone one of the people who have taken part in these projects. I would not be the person I am today without the containers they helped create.

Brody:                                                                                                           

In my own life, I’ve often said that creating art has been one of the most healing things I’ve ever done. It far outpaces what formal therapy has ever done for me. It is transformational to create art from inside of yourself, collaborate with others, and have that be witnessed in the world.

You have a project alongside Fierté Montréal (Montréal Pride), the exhibition Epicenter Revolutions: Self-Documenting Internal Transformations at Eastern Bloc from August 1st–9th, 2025, with a performance event on the 7th. Can you tell me more about this project and how it extends or adapts your typical working method with Epicenter?

Holly:                                                                                                           

Most of the artists in Epicenter are interdisciplinary artists, meaning they work in multiple mediums, including and other than performance art itself. The Epicenter performances were documented through photography, but we lost the documentation for the fifth iteration because the photographer’s roof caved in during a rainstorm, damaging his equipment. I saw it as a blessing in disguise, because it made us rethink documenting the project through photography alone. Obviously, we love having images of our work and need them for grants, funding agencies, and applications, but the performances’ focus on internal transformations raised a question of the appropriateness of a third party creating the documentation. We asked ourselves: How can we flip the traditional script of others documenting trans people, and create our own documentation of our own experiences? On a larger scale, there’s wonderful and challenging conversations to be had about trans people, documentation, and control. For example, the rigorous documentation required to access gender affirming health care.

I’m honoured that the participating artists have chosen to put faith in Epicenter Revolutions: Self-Documenting Internal Transformations and use it as an opportunity to continue our conversations about how best to create a record, document, or extension of the five iterations of the project. We all have different ideas and methods for engaging documentation, and these will make up the exhibition at Eastern Bloc in Montreal, including mediums like sound, video, installation, and ephemera. For example, Eva Gonzalez, the artist who used felting in their performance, has subscribed to major newspapers in the United States and has been clipping headlines and articles that talk about trans rights. Eva is creating a hand-drawn film from these materials which will be projected in the gallery, and the clippings will be present for gallery attendees and collaborators alike to create a papier-mâché sculpture that will hang in front of the projection to distort and reframe the headlines.

Another Epicenter artist in Poland, Kai Milačić, used a full-length mirror to paint and continually repaint their reflection during their performance, resulting in this layered depiction of themself and the internal listening they were engaged in. They have continued this process since the iteration in Poland, engaged in daily self-observation and self-portraiture, and these will be part of the exhibition.

Kai Milačić, Transition of the line, Poznan, Poland, Epicenter Six, 2023. Skye Wilk.

Damaris Baker, whose performance featured gluing hair on their body, is going to be doing another participatory action involving dirt and a recording of themself singing, alongside a space for viewers to write down what the sounds bring out of them. While listening, people will be able to interact with dirt and feel their own internal sensations, and maybe even transformations. Freddie Wulf from the Berlin iteration is sending their top surgery band aids to display.

Since August of last year, we’ve been discussing and asking each other: What means and modes of documentation are effective for performance art? How and when can we document performance? Do witnesses alter or influence the nature of documentation? How does documentation create opportunities to reflect, reconsider, or extend performance? Through this process, artists from different iterations of Epicenter have gotten to meet one another over regular online meetings, so it has extended and strengthened our community as well. Eventually, materials from the exhibition will become a publication with writing from each artist about their performances and documentation process, and in their own languages, with English translations. They can use drawings,  sketches, or whatever means of communication they want to express how they thought about documentation. It will be another document and archive of trans narratives, experiences and creations, with the artists having ownership and authority to discuss their own experiences, methodologies, and ways of living and creating for other people to come across.

Ruya, Silent Revolution, Poznan, Poland, Epicenter Revolutions Six, 2023. Mattia Spich.

Brody:                                                                                                            

Both the exhibition and publication sound fabulous. It’s exciting to hear that the documentation emerging from the durational performances has a kind of durational or time-based element itself, manifesting in acts of collecting, repetition, and revisiting.

You have, alongside all the artists that you’ve worked with, created a performance art community that centres queer and trans experiences. That’s really admirable. Do you have any advice, words of encouragement, or wisdom to share with someone who might want to create a queer performance art community where they live?

Holly:                                                                                                              

The first thing I would say is: just do it. Find a group of people that are curious and get weird. Just start. Nobody needs to know how to do performance art because we already do. We’re performing every day. Be brave and silly and find a group of people ready to do the same. Most of these things happen in people’s homes. There are quite a few collectives in Toronto that have happenings in people’s houses, where they invite friends and share small pieces of performance and talk about them.

You can easily find performance scores online. There’s a great book by Guillermo Gómez-Peña, who is the founder of La Pocha Nostra, a performance group based in Mexico, creating art and resources on non-hierarchical performance pedagogy. They have a book that I highly recommend, full of scores, exercises, and teachings: La Pocha Nostra: A Handbook for the Rebel Artist in a Post Democratic Society (2020).

You can also reach out to artist-run centres in your area and ask them if they know anything happening about performance art. There are often little workshops that happen that might not reach people widely. Ask: Are there performance events happening soon? Do you have any contacts of people who organize performance events? I think the best way to do it is to create opportunities for yourself and others from the ground up. It’s my favourite thing to do.

You can find more of Holly Timpener’s work on their website and Instagram.

5 Must-Read Books by Trans and Non-Binary Authors

By Adi Berardini

To celebrate and recognize Trans Awareness Week from November 13-November 19, Femme Art Review has once again highlighted books written by transgender and non-binary authors for what we deem as “Trans Lit Week.” By sharing the books of transgender and non-binary authors, we hope it will help increase awareness of trans stories and experiences. Many of our favourite books are by trans and non-binary authors so read on and find a new favourite!

I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World by Kai Cheng Thom.

I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World

by Kai Cheng Thom


First featured is I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World by acclaimed poet and author Kai Cheng Thom. This book dives deep into the questions that haunt social movements today through a collection of heartbreaking yet hopeful personal essays and prose poems. I Hope We Choose Love “proposes heartfelt solutions on the topics of violence, complicity, family, vengeance, and forgiveness…This provocative book is a call for nuance in a time of political polarization, for healing in a time of justice, and for love in an apocalypse.” (Adapted summary via Arsenal Pulp Press)

Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein.

Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us

by Kate Bornstein


In Gender Outlaw, first published in 1994 yet decades ahead of its time, Bornstein takes readers on a “wonderfully scenic journey across the terrains of gender and identity. On one level, Gender Outlaw details Bornstein’s transformation from heterosexual man to lesbian woman, from a one-time IBM salesperson to a playwright and performance artist. But this coming-of-age story is also a provocative investigation into our notions of male and female, from a self-described “nonbinary transfeminine diesel femme dyke” who never stops questioning our cultural assumptions.” (Adapted summary via Vintage Books)

Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir by Akwaeke Emezi.

Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir

by Akwaeke Emezi

In Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir, best-selling author Akwaeke Emezi “reveals the harrowing yet resolute truths of their own life. Through candid, intimate correspondence with friends, lovers, and family, Emezi traces the unfolding of a self and the unforgettable journey of a creative spirit stepping into power in the human world. Their story weaves through transformative decisions about their gender and body, their precipitous path to success as a writer, and the turmoil of relationships on an emotional, romantic, and spiritual plane, culminating in a book that is as tender as it is brutal.” (text via Penguin Random House).

Care Of: Letters, Connections, and Cures by Ivan Coyote.

Care Of: Letters, Connections, and Cures

by Ivan Coyote


Storyteller Ivan Coyote has spent years on the road collecting letters from audience members and readers. Like many other artists, they found themselves at a standstill with the pandemic in early 2020. Their latest book Care Of combines the most powerful of letters they have received over time with their responses, creating a body of intimate correspondence. Taken together, “they become an affirming and joyous reflection on many of the themes central to Coyote’s celebrated work—compassion and empathy, family fragility, non-binary and trans identity, and the unending beauty of simply being alive.” (Adapted summary via Penguin Random House).

I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya

I’m Afraid of Men

by Vivek Shraya

Last but certainly not least, is I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya—a must-read about toxic masculinity, patriarchy, and accountability. In this book, Shraya unpacks both her fear and desire as a trans woman, delivering an “important record of the cumulative damage caused by misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia, releasing trauma from a body that has always refused to assimilate. I’m Afraid of Men is a blueprint for how we might cherish what makes us different and conquer what makes us afraid.” (Adapted summary from Penguin Random House).

We hope that you enjoy this selection and check out some of these books!

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s Black Trans Archives

Colonization of the digital space

By Virginia Ivaldi

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. Black Trans Archive (2020).Installation Shot. Photo courtesy of the artist.

While digital archives have existed since the internet, the digitalization of art during the pandemic feels like a quick and (too) easy response to this global crisis. This rush towards digitalization has created only flat commodities, undermining the work of artists that have long since relied on the internet to develop and broadcast their work. Virtual spaces, for example, have been used by creatives to give context to the speculative queer theory of fluidity. The post-internet era destroys the boundaries and dualities that have always been challenged by the LGBTQ+ community — online identity, indeed, is inextricable from offline identity and virtual and physical spaces melt in the reality of everyday life. Because virtual spaces have been used by members of the LGBTQ+ community as an alternative to a reality that discriminates them, digitalizing all art and life to respond to a health emergency means to colonize the foreign space of the ‘other’ for the benefit of the dominant classes (white, cisgender, bourgeois).

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley’s work seeks to archive Black Trans experience and discuss gender and colonialism in online and offline spaces.  The artist employs virtuality as a place for self-narration, which is not limited by a physical body defined by chemical, anatomical, and social fixities. Brathwaite-Shirley’s archives are fully interactive, combining film and gaming, poetry, and music. More than an archive, Brathwaite-Shirley’s artworks are a full world designed to hold Black Trans ancestors, those who have been hidden and buried, “those living, those who have passed, and those that have been forgotten.”[1] Moreover, the archives are interconnected by the notion of Trans Tourism that explores the cultural politics of “din[ing] on Black Trans trauma.”[2] The artist states, “Throughout history, Black Queer and Trans people have been erased from the archives. Because of this, it is necessary not only to archive our existence, but also the many creative narratives we have used and continue to use and to share our experiences.”[3]

Everyone is welcomed to explore Brathwaite-Shirley’s artwork, however, the archives will confront the viewers with their identity, creating multiple experiences that differ depending on the viewer’s identity. Every project by Brathwaite-Shirley starts with a questionnaire about gender and identity as a legitimate form of security against Trans-tourism, to avoid whoever engages with the artwork to consume Black and/or Trans trauma as a commodity the labour of being studied.

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. Black Trans Archive (2020). Photo courtesy of the artist.

In Black Trans Archive (2020) the artist offers the possibility to explore the archived material after the viewers identify themselves. The storyline of this project unfolds differently depending on whether one identifies as 1. Black and Transgender; 2. Transgender or 3. Cisgender. As a cisgender individual, through entering Brathwaite-Shirley’s universe I am faced with my own privilege and historical fault, rather than with Black Trans trauma. The cisgender player is requested to assist the construction of the archive by using his/her privilege to help the Black Trans community both in the day-to-day and in the resurrection of their ancestors. Task 1 asks the player to resurrect a Trans-Black ancestor while Task 2 asks to help a Black Trans woman walk around undisturbed.  Brathwaite-Shirley explains “My work often has terms and conditions which require you to centre Black Trans people, because if you don’t centre Black Trans people, you are not welcomed to view my work.”[4]

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley. Black Trans Archive (2020). Photo courtesy of the artist.

Resurrection Lands (2019), is an ongoing archive project that blends queer and postcolonial theory, aiming at resurrecting Black Trans ancestors. However, the project does not ruminate upon Black/ Trans traumas but aims to resuscitate Black Trans ancestors and create a speculative universe that can hold them. The viewer is introduced to Resurrection Lands by a mechanical voice saying “ […] how is it possible to store you in a place that once erased you, so we decided to build this place the Resurrection Lands, an archive designed for you, by others like you […] People found out that we had brought back our Black Trans ancestors and wanted to meet them, so few designed a way for those to access the archive, but not everyone that used the archive had good intentions […] it was misused, hacked, re-appropriated […].”[5] This introduction points out an earlier attempt of cis-gender/white people to invade the sacred space of the Other; the burial ground is a space that some want to explore for their own profit.

In 2021 (two years after the artwork was developed), during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the BLM/TBLM movement exploded, Resurrection Lands assumes new meanings that point to the threat of obsolesce looming over digital art resulting from the over-digitalization of every art form during the lockdowns and the repercussions of using civil rights as an online trend. In Updating to Remain the Same, Wendy Chun describes how updates save things by destroying and writing over the things they resuscitate. The writer explains “what it means when media moves from the new to the habitual–when our bodies become archives of supposedly obsolescent media, streaming, updating, sharing, saving. New media as we are told exists at the bleeding edge of obsolescence. We thus forever try to catch up, updating to remain the same. Meanwhile, analytic, creative, and commercial efforts focus exclusively on the next big thing: figuring out what will spread and who will spread it the fastest.”[6]  Describing politics of colonialism and ‘otherness’, Brathwaite-Shirley’s archives attempt to protect themselves not only from the cultural politics that exploit Black Trans trauma, but also from a new reality built on consumerism dynamics. In front of a reality forged on constant updates, fast-consumerism influences the danger for ‘resurrected’ individuals to be used as a disposable commodity and later being re-buried under millions of data – created for the sustainability of the main class (and of the art luxury market).

Brathwaite-Shirley’s archive projects create a world that can resurrect and hold Black Trans ancestors. While still struggling to bring all the ancestors back to life, the archive project is already threatened by the possibility of being re-buried under millions of data once again, cancelled by constant updates. In 2021, after the lazy decision of digitalizing the world to sustain it as we know it, Brathwaite-Shirley’s artwork highlights a new invasion of privacy, of space, of storage. It symbolizes a loss of trust – there is no solidarity in exploring Black Trans experience, only personal satisfaction. While Black Trans individuals are circulating new discourses, the society they try to change is already thinking about the next big thing.

[1] Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Black Trans Archives, 2020.

[2] Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, “Dining on trauma: Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley talks trans-tourism, motherhood, & being a “Freaky Friday everyday” interview by Tamara Hart, AQNB, August 10, 2020, https://www.aqnb.com/2020/08/10/dining-on-trauma-danielle-brathwaite-shirley-on-trans-tourism-motherhood-and-being-a-freaky-friday-everyday/

[3] Meet the “Artist:Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, QUAD, last modified October 26, 2020, https://www.derbyquad.co.uk/about/news/meet-artist-danielle-brathwaite-shirley

[4] “Meet the Artist: Danielle-Brathwaite Shirley”, QUAD, last modified October 26, 2020, 54s: 1m05s, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR56AK7Cr5A

[5] Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Resurrection Lands, 2019.

[6] Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, “Summary” in Updating to Remain the Same, (MIT press), 2016. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/updating-remain-same

Art and Social Change: In Discussion with Munea Wadud

Munea Wadud. Support Queer and Trans Artists sticker.Image Courtesy of the artist.

Interview by Adi Berardini

I first came across Ottawa-based artist Munea Wadud’s colourful pastel patches on the LGBTQ2+ market site Flamingo Market, and the way xe blends activism and art and design immediately caught my eye. Their art prints, pins, patches, and stickers reading “Support Queer and Trans Artists” and “Destroy White Supremacy” use bright colour schemes to dynamically convey messages of advocacy.

As they describe, Munea Wadud is a “self-taught, multi-disciplinary artist with years of experience in acrylic painting, watercolors, and many other traditional forms of visual arts.” Recently, they have also been exploring digital drawing as a form of expression. Passionate about social change, Wadud creates art that is first and foremost inclusive and feminist, and their “identity and being a queer, non-binary person of colour” informs their work. Wadud’s art also has a strong focus on body positivity, creating representations showing that queer and trans bodies of all sizes are beautiful. Munea describes more about their art practice in the following interview.

Your art is influenced and inspired by culture, for example, the animation you created of a woman going out after Iftar. Your lo-fi city animations also convey the loneliness of the city, which is only highlighted by the pandemic and lockdowns. Can you speak more about how your art and cultural identity intersect in your practice? 

I feel like because I grew up in Canada, I felt really ashamed of my culture and my traditions. I know a lot of other South Asian kids in North America who felt similarly, and there was a lot of internalized racism there. You get made fun of a lot for how your food smells and how you dress. Art has helped me heal from that—it’s helped me fall back in love with that part of myself that I was denied for a long time. I do this by trying to include Bengali text in my works, drawing more traditional clothing, parts of my culture I think are fun and joyous, like going out after iftar, wearing really vibrant and colourful sarees. I’d like to continue rediscovering my culture through my art.

Munea Wadud. Plus Size Nude Series Art Print. Image Courtesy of the artist.

You celebrate body positivity in your art by depicting larger bodies, stretchmarks, and folks with larger noses. I was wondering if you could explain the importance of body positivity in your art and illustrations?

I am passionate about body positivity – it has helped me gain a lot of confidence and see myself in a much healthier way. It made me realize just how many of us struggle with body image issues, so I wanted to create more work that reflects people’s beauty. Things like stretch marks, cellulite, body hair, just larger bodies in general, are not depicted in a lot of art [and] it creates these unhealthy expectations of your body. You feel awful about the way you look and it’s really disheartening. I just want to make art that people can see themselves in. I want them to feel just as beautiful and important as anyone else because they are. It’s really important to me that representation is reflected in my work.

Munea Wadud. Support Black and Brown Artists sticker.Image Courtesy of the artist.

Your art explicitly advocates for support of Queer and Trans folks, particularly Black and Brown Queer and Trans artists, and does so by juxtaposing bright, colourful graphics and imagery (such as your arcade game print stating “Trans Rights are Human Rights”). Can you speak more about this juxtaposition and how you use it to convey important messages and advocacy? How do find creating multiples (like stickers and patches etc.) help communicate messages of support?

I just think that every space should be more inclusive of LGBTQ+ people and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) but often, I think a lot of work depicts sadness and struggle and though that is a reality for lots of minorities, our pain is not our only story. There’s a lot of media representing our obstacles and ways that we’ve overcome them. I just think I also want to see us being joyful and having good lives. I like adding bright colours and fun imagery with the same messages that represent inclusivity for QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) because we deserve to have those things too. So that’s why I create the juxtaposition.

Often, I think a lot of work depicts sadness and struggle and though that is a reality for lots of minorities, our pain is not our only story.

As for things like patches and stickers, I guess I’ve just always wanted some similar colourful and pastel designs but that reflect the views of minorities like me—I want people to feel included in my work and like their voices matter. So, I wanted to design my products in a way that fits this design aesthetic that I love, but also incorporates really important issues that matter a lot like advocacy for LGBTQ+ folks, inclusivity of BIPOC folks, and much more!

I think it’s important because these are all items I, as an independent artist, have designed and have decided to share with folks, which is very different than big corporations who create similar messaging only to support themselves rather than the people being directly affected by these messages. I wanted to highlight that difference, too, that although you can find intersectional and inclusive messaging in a lot of different stores now, it’s still important to look at who is making that product and for what reasons. 

Who are some artists (or other influences) that inspire your artistic practice?

I follow so many amazing artists that really inspire me every single day – ha.ha.ha.sina is a talented Black artist on Instagram and I love her painting style. I also follow Manahil Bandukwala who creates everything from watercolour pieces, to jewelry, to written works! There’s also Harar Hall (gold.tinted.glasses on Instagram) who’s work is super lovely as well – I love their poetry and how well it blends with their art style! And Lucky Little Queer who is a supportive fellow artist and creates amazing products too!

Munea Wadud. Trans Rights are Human Rights sticker.Image Courtesy of the artist.

Do you have any advice for other queer and BIPOC creators about starting an art business?

I know a lot of you are hesitant and nervous about starting a business, I was too. I used to feel like my work wasn’t good enough like I needed to practice more and wait longer to post something worthwhile. Honestly, looking back, I just wish I had started my online business sooner. And that’s the advice I have for you – your work is beautiful, you are talented, and I think you should still share it! I would love to see more BIPOC creators thrive and unapologetically show off their amazing art. 

Do you have any other upcoming projects you’d like to mention?

Right now, I am working on a really big print restock of many of my series like my body positivity prints as well as a few others – so please keep an eye out on my Etsy store for that drop! I’ll be posting my latest updates on my Instagram so make sure to follow me on there.

Check out more of Munea Wadud’s art on their Etsy Store, Facebook and Instagram.