Tableau Vivant: Eaton’s Catalogue 1976

Those of us whom was raised in united states within the 1960s and 70s lacked art, Bible stories, and history as universal recommendations. The tome that shaped our values most tangibly had been the department store catalogue, a wish guide of that which we might have and whom we’re able to be as soon as it was got by us. Gender ended up being plainly defined, battle ended up being single, and course had been center. The most-read book of our Canadian youth in this performance we use the tableau form to enact a page from the Eaton’s catalogue. We now have paired women’s formals (a appearance we now have had trouble effectively fitting into) with restroom plumbing work to invoke teen big boobs video the bounty that is endless cleanliness and hope that the catalogue implied. Three ladies stay in vacant stillness, water streaming through the spouts at their breasts.

Duration: The 15 moment performance is duplicated twice one hour

First performed: March 1998, Hallwalls Centre for modern Art, Buffalo, nyc. Afterwards done at Counterposes, Montreal, curated by Jennifer Fisher and Jim Drobnick.

Astroart area Corps

Commanders Dempsey and Millan are getting ready to enter space that is deep to build up revisionist stellar cartography and explore the resistant nature of anti-matter.

First performed: 2014, La Nuit Blanche, Calgary, Alberta september

Photos by Lindsey Bond

Big Wig

The revolting additionally the revolutionary, the reviled additionally the revered are united by locks in this right time travelling sing-along. Through the wigged ladies of Ancient Rome to your hirsute levels of seventeenth century France to those extremely hairy 1960s: the world’s many infamous queen traces the annals of radical tresses while thinking democracy.

“we want my very own revolution. I would like to conserve package tops, and purchase one out of the mail. I’d like anachronism and misconception, therefore the myth that is anachronistic things are certain to get better. I do want to be pretty and only a little tragic, not too tragic for the reason that it will make me personally dead. “

Duration: 35 min.

First done: June 2017 Queer City Cinema Camp, Trash, Filth event in Regina, Saskatchewan, curated by Gary Varro

Revised: November 2017 Isolated Landscapes in Winnipeg, Manitoba, curated by Kathy Rae Huffman

Photos By Karen Asher and Anita Lubosch

The Dress Series

The Dress Series (1989-1996), a small grouping of performances that explore the gown as the female ceremonial costume and icon of femininity. In these pieces, fabric is replaced by not likely materials, producing juxtaposition, new definitions and upending expectations. All costumes fabricated by Dempsey and Millan.

In Arborite Housedress, the pro/antagonist defends herself against racial and financial huge difference by clothes by herself within the domestic architecture for the times: the house/dress is her shimmering, clean fortress and her jail. For the piece she reveals her worries (such as for example gravity, or perhaps the fear that “parts of my dangerously sagging self might result in bad neighborhoods”) and her dreams (border city romances, getting straight straight down with dust, plus the reduction of her household, so she’s going to have enough time to devote by herself more completely to being truly a homemaker). The wearable sculpture/costume has been exhibited at numerous galleries and has now been bought by The Winnipeg memorial included in their permanent collection.

“Have you ever pointed out that before you started if you wash the floor in the morning, by nightfall it looks just the same as? Them again that you can do all of the dishes, and in a matter of hours someone has gone and dirtied? That kids are small magnets that are grime picking right up all method of stubborn spots and bringing them house once again? Well, I Am thinking. It would effectively cut my work load by 60%. If i possibly could be rid of my family, ”

The Dress: lumber, laminate, chrome home equipment, screws, fabric, Velcro.

Duration: 25 moments

First performed: February 1994, Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre when it comes to Arts, Banff, Alberta

Photos by Sheila Spence

In Glass Madonna the world-weary mom of Jesus proffers wry advice and sage warnings from behind her stained cup gown. Fashioned such as for instance a two-dimensional carnival cutout with holes on her arms and mind, the gown is just a colourful and explicit rendering associated with the Virgin Mary’s familiar apparel, with a unique peek-a-boo panel of clear cup to show the main associated with the Madonna’s fame: her 2000 hymen that is year-old. In her own never-the-same-twice visitations, Mary remarks on love, solution, in addition to guys in her own life.

“When he comes to you personally on a dream-filled evening, delivers their angels to honk their horn at your door, don’t be home. ”

The Dress: stained cup, leading, patina, oak, stain, equipment

Duration: 20 moments

First performed: February 1994, Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre when it comes to Arts, Banff, Alberta (developed from earlier in the day performance piece The Plaster Virgin, 1992)

Picture The Banff Centre

In Object/Subject of Desire t he main element that is visual this performance is a big ball dress, made out of crisp white paper, similar to a debutante dress. Stiff and translucent, delicate yet unyielding, the gown rustles noisily as Dempsey moves and talks.

In this costume the countless complexities of desire are talked about, such as the numerous ways desire could be negated. The purity and purity for the gown, the available expression of “wanting”, and also the sweetness of distribution, together create a presumption that the thing of love talked about may be the old-fashioned partner that is heterosexual. Nonetheless, these social presumptions are confronted through the section that is last of piece, as she finally, clearly, reveals the carnality of her desire to have an other woman.

“i would like you, to desire me personally. I want one to even want me though I do not really would like you. I do not would like you at all, but i would like everyone to. I’d like everybody else to desire you, but I do not would like one to wish someone else but me personally. All i’d like is your want. ”

The Dress: vellum, packing tape, Velcro

Duration: five minutes

First performed: Red Deer university, Alberta, 1988 (earlier version performed in 1987 before Dempsey began collaboration with Millan december)

Photo by Lorri Millan

In vinyl Bride, the performer wears an iconic bridal dress, the classic raiment of femininity, virginity and vow. But, the gown’s meant meaning is changed by its construction, from veil to teach, of clear plastic. The product encases the bride suggesting more medical recommendations to human anatomy bags and clinical specimens, or commodities bagged and exhibited for sale. Disturbing, dream-like and funny, love and fashion, desire and denial are done in the gown’s folds that are unforgiving.

“You have actually gone shopping with a pal, your sis and even your mother that is own been told, ‘It’s ideal. It is you. It is a knockout, ’ only to learn later on that it is a funeral, perhaps perhaps perhaps not a marriage. It really is July, perhaps maybe maybe not December. You’re a nurse, perhaps maybe not an aviator. ”

The Dress: clear plastic, fishing line, buttons

Duration: 20 mins