Nontraditional families celebrated at Vancouver Museum and in public art
The Museum of Vancouver will soon host an exhibit celebrating nontraditional families.
A community-art-based program called Chosen Family Portraits will be launched tomorrow (August 2) and will open to the public on Wednesday (August 3), according to Amber Dawn, director of programming for the Vancouver Queer Film Festival.
The portraits have been on display at the Roundhouse Arts and Recreation Centre as part of the Queer Arts Festival.
"I really wanted to get into a public gallery or museum," Amber Dawn told the Straight. "I'm so happy to have a relationship with the Museum of Vancouver."
There are 28 families that participated in the project, which was created by the festival's artists-in-residence Sarah Race and Sarah Buchanan. It's part of Celebrate Queer Vancouver, which is a monthlong series of film, public art, and community dialogues.
Amber Dawn is particularly pleased that eight of the families are being featured on lamppost plaques around the city.
“Each one has a chosen family portrait and a quote from the family and then a historical fact as it pertains to Vancouver," she said. "To have us visible right on the street is great."
The plaques can be seen at the following locations: Denman Street near Beach Avenue, Commercial Drive and Grant Street (east side), Hamilton and Georgia streets, Main and Georgia streets (east side), Victoria Drive and Adanac Street (south side), Hastings and Hawks streets (north side), 1200 block of Davie Street (south side), and Robson Street in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Comments
3 Comments
Straight Up
Aug 1, 2011 at 9:15pm
I have pretty much had it with the "queer" label. Here we have a group of people who have a sexual orientation that varies from the societal "norm". So what?? Why does that make them "queer"?? Honestly, if homosexuals et al want to be viewed in the same light as everyone else, then for fuck's sake, why don't they stop with the stupid labels???
and I do not mean only the labels for GLBT community - heterosexuals in this community are labeled as "breeders" - that is stupid as well.
Who cares what anyone's sexual orientation is?? Personally, it is none of anyone's damned business who I have sex with and how. I think things would be far better in this world, and people more accepting, if everyone wasn't going around saying "hey! look at me! I'm queer!" If they stopped making it such a big deal of it (which it isn't) maybe the rest of the world wouldn't either.
But then, I have been called young and naive' so maybe I am waaaaay off the mark.
Chris Hamilton
Aug 2, 2011 at 11:38am
It's far more than who you have sex with (which is a common argument), it's walking down the street holding hands with your partner or any other public display of affection without fear of violence. It's not having to hide your relationship and your very self from the world.
Straight families are shoved down our throats everywhere we look, so it's also about equal representation in society. If people hadn't said "hey! look at me! I'm queer!" there wouldn't be the level of acceptance there is today, and I'm sure society would be content to sweep us under the rug and pretend we don't exist. So yeah, maybe a bit young and naive to think it's no big deal to everyone. If you are straight you take for granted the freedom you have as a heterosexual person. The fact is... it IS a big deal in a negative way to a lot of people, and exposing them to real people who they can relate to is an important step toward changing their attitudes.
And the 'breeder' thing... generally used as a joke.
Ken Boesem
Aug 2, 2011 at 12:44pm
In fairness to Straight Up, I think it's easy for people with no knowledge of history to make what are some pretty facile assumptions about identity politics. Does s/he even know that "queer" is a label we reclaimed after decades of having it hurled at us as abuse and having it used to take away our jobs, our children and other basic civil rights? Does s/he know that gay men were marched into concentration camps beside the Jews and other prisoners during the Holocaust but not released when the other prisoners were liberated because they still considered them "criminals" under the law for loving who they loved? Does s/he really think that a few TV shows in the last few years or the odd gay celebrity erases the overwhelming onslaught of heterosexual sex in pop culture used to sell everything from pop music to children's toys and used to silence and deny any other points of view? Maybe not. Does she/he know about the lesbian couple in New York who waited 23 years together to be allowed to marry or the lesbian couple in Norway who saved some 40 people under gunfire from a terrorist (because last I checked CNN certainly hasn't called them for an interview)? Does s/he know that Little Sister's bookstore right here in Vancouver has survived no less than three anti-gay terrorist bombings in its history (and countless bomb threats) from people who'd rather we all just shut up? Or maybe s/he just needs to spend some time with Google and do her/his research before s/he is called out for her/his ignorance.