FIERCE focuses on the struggle to find courage to continue. The artist’s strategy in this work is to visualize not the pain, but the inspiration to fight it. When creating these images, Lloyd moves them through the halves of her brain much like the blood moves through the heart. Sue Lloyd is a Toronto-based artist working with lens-based and hand-made images, using elements that are her own as well as other people’s. She is interested in visual imagery as text,…

I want to engage the audience in questions around different bodies and varying experiences of perception both internally and from the outside. This project plays with the invisibility of things, what we see and don’t see, or perhaps what we show/ don’t show and the discomfort of that. This piece also is an exploration around mental health along with what we define as beautiful or ugly or both. Trans artist Sonny Bean’s art explores the varying experiences that come with…

Silence Of The Femmes is a trans QPOC compilation of traditional femme aesthetic and twisted DIY trash art. Using almost entirely recycled materials, Silence Of The Femmes cleanses clothes stained with makeup and hand sews them into various quilts. Quilts are framed in glossy hot pink vintage frames with femme tools like razor blades, mascara and lipstick wands, shaved Barbie heads, condoms, and cigarette butts. Ruben Llanillos is a trans femme QPOC artist. Their work embodies ‘traditional’ femme aesthetic with…

This photographic essay explores a wide spectrum of experiences told from the perspective of a diverse group of young people, ages fourteen to twenty-four, identifying as queer. Portraits are presented without judgment or stereotype by eliminating environmental influence with a stark white backdrop. This backdrop acts as a blank canvas, where each subject’s personal thoughts are handwritten onto the final photographic print. Rachelle Lee Smith an award-winning and internationally shown photographer based in Philadelphia, whose work in Speaking OUT: Queer…

An interactive kinetic chair sculpture, under which seat is a metal phallus with a rack and pinion mechanism that runs along its shaft. This mechanism is connected to a circular crank on the side, and when turned, causes the phallus to lift up and down between the legs of the seated person. It’s manual operation, look and proportions suggest that it could be either a medieval torture device or a fun party gag. Robert Donnelly is a multidisciplinary artist practicing…

These works address issues related to HIV/AIDS, sex-gender, LGBT rights and freedom of expression, as well as issues that have been impinging negatively in the lives of LGBT individuals and communities around the world such as; homophobia, heterosexism and hetero-normativity.Eliud & Israel are Mexican-Canadian artists based in Toronto. They both hold Bachelors degrees in fine arts from Mexican institutions. Eliud is also a graduate of OCADU. Eliud and Israel are committed to issues relevant to the LGBT community, which they…

This body of work offers a tender and intimate look into the life of the artist, who documents personal relationships, by photographing former and current lovers. Hovey collects the photos to remember their time together. This series is not about any of the men in particular, although Hovey is the common thread. Matt Hovey is a photographer originally from Vermont, USA. Hovey’s work explores different types of relationships: between the photographer and the model, to one’s self, nature, etc. Next…

Social networking services have amplified the level of immediacy upon which we interact and court each other. True intent is, at times, buried among a pile of words. In his piece, Say What You Mean, Pantieras examines the sanctity of the written word and the fragile bonds of language. Christos Pantieras works in mixed media, installation, and sculpture. His recent relocation to Toronto from Ottawa, stemmed from his desire to pursue higher studies and to push the boundaries of his…

Mme. Zsa Zsa, The $2 Psychic, is a series of performances by visual and performance artist Andrew Harwood. This work involves drag, glitter and “psychic readings”. The guests are suggested to give Mme. Zsa Zsa $2 and she will read them. Andrew Harwood is a Winnipeg-based artist, writer, curator and gallerist with a recent exhibition Séancé at Platform Centre for Photographic & Media Arts. He is past Director at Mercer Union, A Space Gallery and General manager of C Magazine…

With an interest in creating art that highlights, celebrates and contests the category of “other,” this outdoor installation project, aims to explore the similar experiences of struggle, resistance and resilience of “othered” groups as a means of creating meaningful ally-ship. GraphicPoetics is a collaborative team that consists of Lishai, a leading and enigmatic poet and spoken word artist and David Brame, an educator, comic artist, and storyteller. Combining performance and the visual they tackle issues of race/identity, gender/intersectionality, violence and…

Forty years after the release of Rosa von Praunheim’s ground-breaking 1971 film “It is not the homosexual who is perverse, rather the situation in which he lives”, a group of men assemble to review, rewrite and restage its legendary final scene. The Rosa Song combines dialogue from the original with challenging new ideas about gay male life in Germany and internationally, concluding with a musical manifesto that breathes new life into this 1970s classic. 10 minutes. Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay is…

Cruising in an enchanted forest, a mirror-masked flâneur encounters a series of oracles, each with forgotten wisdom to impart to him through song. Borrowing the words and voices of gay elders from religious and mystical scholar Andrew Harvey to British essayist Quentin Crisp to founding Radical Faerie Harry Hay, Legacy weaves together a spiritual manifesto for queer men, reigniting a battle cry for personal and collective metamorphosis. 13 minutes. Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay is an artist and diarist. His work in…

The artist revisits Colin Campbell’s pioneering 1972 video True/False, which features Campbell alternately affirming and negating delicate statements about himself and his private life. Initially intended as a remake, the video instead summons Campbell’s voice to speak once more; a fragile, reversed palimpsest. Colin Is My Real Name was filmed at Mount Allison University, where True/False was originally produced. 6 minutes. Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay is an artist and diarist. His work in video, sound, and text contemplates the history of…

Participants are led into a room where they will encounter the artist for an intimate one-on-one performance. After a period of silence and observation, the artist will tell the participant what she loves about them, with each statement being completely truthful, stemming out of the present experience of the encounter. Beau Coleman is a cross-disciplinary artist whose work has been performed and/or exhibited in North America, Europe, Africa, Australia and Asia. Previous creations include live art, spoken word, digital media,…

Electronic artist Simple Chemistry blends elements of techno, house & freestyle to create a sound reminiscent of the past with and entirely new momentum. He will be playing selections form his recently released debut album for Nuit Rose.