Feral Domestic

Jan 13 — Apr 6, 2024
Field:

Exhibition

Description:

Feral Domestic was an exhibition by Dani and Sheilah ReStack, who use video, drawing, and photography to contemplate queer desire, family, and collaboration in a time of planetary crisis.

The exhibition featured a multi-channel installation of the video trilogy Feral Domestic (2017–22) and three artist books of drawings, writings, and images related to each work, which together document the artists’ ongoing interest in the domestic as a space of creative possibility.

Composed of the videos Strangely Ordinary This Devotion (2017), Come Coyote (2019), and Future From Inside (2022), the Feral Domestic trilogy traverses a seven-year period in the ReStacks’ relationship as it materializes in their life and work, and intersects with questions of motherhood and reproduction.

Assembled from fragments of documentary footage, and fictional and restaged scenes with family and friends, each work moves dynamically between moments of conflict, desire, communion, joy, and the everyday. This emotional range is coupled with an attention to the natural world and the expressive potentials of colour, sound, movement, and materials—which are repeatedly cut, submerged, spilled, stitched, and buried—to provide proposals for reshaping current conventions towards new possibilities.

Strangely Ordinary this Devotion and Future from Inside were projected on the gallery walls, while Come Coyote was projected on a futon mattress owned by Western Front founders Martin Bartlett, followed by Eric Metcalfe. The trilogy screened every hour on the hour during gallery visiting times, and ran for a total of fifty-three minutes. 

To close the exhibition, an iteration of the artists’ ongoing performance Shameless Light (2016—) was presented in the Western Front office. For the performance, queer identified women and non-binary community members were invited to write love letters, which they read aloud under red neon lights to create space for queer love as an unruly and generative act. Readings by Randy Lee Cutler, Amber Dawn, Sidney Gordon, Jen Sungshine, Fegor Obuwoma, and Valérie Walker were followed by a conversation with the ReStacks and Western Front executive director Susan Gibb.

The exhibition also marked the commencement of the ReStacks’ participation in Western Front’s artists-in-residence program. During their residency, the ReStacks further developed a feature length video, Stovepipe to the Sun.

Curated by Susan Gibb.

Documents:

A red drawing on a white and blue wall of a small conical shape nestled inside a large conical shape. They resemble two megaphones.
A white-cube gallery with a mixed-media artist book open on a plinth.
A white cube gallery with three mixed-media artist books lying open on plinths.
A white cube gallery with two mixed-media artist books lying open on plinths.
An artist book lies closed on an angular plinth. It has a white cover with “Come Coyote” in black handwritten text.
A mixed-media artist book lies open on an angular plinth. The spread is a collage with  stitching, tape, handwritten text, and drawing.
A mixed-media artist book with collage, drawing, and handwritten text lies open on an angular plinth.
A mixed-media artist book lies open on a plinth to reveal a collage with paper, tape, stitching, and handwritten text.
A video is projected on a wall. The still shows Dani and Sheilah Restack making out in the grass. Sheilah straddles Dani and wears a cherry red wig. White text runs across the bottom of the video that reads, I was told that you can make babies that don’t need water.
A video is projected on a wall. The still shows a close-up of a woman’s crotch from below. She lies down and is wearing periwinkle bikini underwear. White text runs across the bottom of the video that reads, What about it?
A video is projected on a mattress strapped to a wooden pallet. The still shows a person holding an analogue camera.
A video is projected on a mattress strapped to a wooden pallet. The still shows Sheilah ReStack’s face in profile.
A video is projected on a blue wall. The still shows a person walking outdoors down a path lined with tall grass.
A video is projected on a blue wall. The still shows a close-up of a sewing machine foot as it punctures a paper surface with stitches.
A video is projected on a wall. The still shows a hand finger painting an animal on a fuschia plexiglas surface.

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Western Front is a non-profit artist-run centre in Vancouver.

We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.