WESTERN FRONT – Shameless Light

A person with short hair reads at a microphone for a seated audience in a gallery space. They are backlit by a red neon sign that resembles two megaphones.

To close the exhibition Feral Domestic by Dani and Sheilah ReStack, Western Front is pleased to present an iteration of the artists’ ongoing performance Shameless Light (2016—). For the performance, queer-identified women and non-binary community members have been invited to write love letters, which they will read aloud under red neon lights.

The work was initiated in Carrizozo, New Mexico following the 2016 US election, and has since been staged at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus; Visual Studies Workshop, Rochester; Leslie Lohman Project Space, New York City; Athena Grand, Athens; Fort Worth Contemporary Arts, Fort Worth; and Gallery 400, Illinois.

Shameless Light places articulations of queer love and desire into public space to be contended with as declaration of existence and disruption of heteronormative ideals; to create space for queer love as an unruly and generative act.

The evening will begin with a conversation between the ReStacks and Western Front executive director Susan Gibb, and will be followed by readings from Randy Lee Cutler, Amber Dawn, Sidney Gordon, Ogheneofegor Obuwoma, Jen Sungshine, and Valérie d. Walker.

About the Artists

Randy Lee Cutler is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and gardener based on the unceded Coast Salish territories also known as Vancouver, Canada. Taking the form of artist books, walks, performance, collage, printed matter, video, sound, and creative/critical writing, her practice weaves together themes of materiality and intuition. She has produced numerous hybrid projects that engage with gender, art, science, and fiction in diverse ways. Cutler is a professor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

Randy Lee Cutler smiles with her arms crossed. She has short silver hair, and wears black glasses and a black button-up shirt with colourful polka dots.

Amber Dawn is a writer and educator living on unceded Coast Salish territories (Vancouver, Canada). Her work spans fiction, memoir, and poetry, and her debut novel Sub Rosa (2010) won the Lambda Literary Award for Debut Lesbian Fiction and the Writers’ Trust of Canada Dayne Ogilvie Prize, and her memoir How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir (2013) won the Vancouver Book Award. With Justin Ducharme, Amber Dawn is the co-editor of Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry (2019).

Amber Dawn wears a black choker and a short sleeve low-cut black top. Her red hair is in a ponytail. She also wears pink lipstick, and has a silver Monroe piercing.

Sidney Gordon is a queer artist and cultural worker, born and raised on Treaty 4 territory (Regina, Canada) and now based in so-called “Vancouver.” The main focus of their film work is creating experiential embodiment, often portraying and deriving from personal subconscious experiences, while their cameraless photographic practice focuses on questioning authorship through ecological co-creation, relying equally on intention, chance, and response. They are co-founder and curator of XINEMA: a local experimental film series, and a member of Iris Film Collective, and the artist-run space Liquidation World.

A black-and-white long exposure photo of Sidney Gordon. They gaze at the camera directly while a ghostly blur maps movement around their head.

Ogheneofegor Obuwoma is a Nigerian storyteller, writer, and arts worker based on the traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations (Vancouver, Canada). A key question in their practice is, “What does it mean to be a body in relationship to this world and time?” Their work as an artist and writer emerges from an investigation of questions of the body and self as it relates to the nuanced and ever-changing state of contemporary Nigerian society and culture. In exploring these ideas of self and community, she utilizes concepts of African futurisms and a visual language derived from lived experience and the vastness of the spiritual. Obuwoma grounds their practice in traditions of care and re-imagination.

Wearing a black and silver puff-sleeved dress, Fegor Obuwoma stands in front of a yellow and grey wall while reading off their phone. The light from the screen is reflected in their round wire-framed glasses, casting their face in a soft glow.

Jen Sungshine is a queer Taiwanese-Canadian interdisciplinary artist, community facilitator, and cultural producer based in Vancouver, Canada. She is the co-artistic director of Love Intersections, a media arts collective producing intergenerational and intersectional QTBIPOC stories through documentary film and artwork. She programs community events at The Polygon Gallery, and co-produces Hot Pot Talks, CURRENT: Feminist Electronic Art Symposium, and Seize the Means (of Production) Video Co-op.

Jen Sungshine sits on a black vinyl couch and turns to look at the camera. She has bright blue hair, and wears a black t-shirt and silver jewellery.

Valérie d. Walker is a Neo-Renaissance transmedia artist, alchemist, Indigo griot, educator, and curator based in Vancouver, Canada. Afrofuturistic time traveler, V’s art practice interweaves enviro-positive natural indigo dyeing, hand-shaped resist patterning, solar-power, story-telling, epigenetic memories, quotidian actions, sensorially immersive fibre-based installations, magical surrealism, Black Panther-esque community empowerment and techno-feminism. Eco-sexual queer activism and guerilla-grrrl DIY powers. V’s Digi-Femme radio show XXFiles (now ffFiles) celebrates 24+ years on CKUT.CA (Mtl 90.3FM) and Soundcloud. Valérie landed on Gaia in Honolulu and has travelled the planet in space and time.

Smiling, Valerie Walker stands in front of a white background. She wears a short-sleeve shirt with Hawaiian iconography layered on top of an indigo dyed top. A hot pink visor peeks out from her short curly auburn hair.

Dani and Sheilah ReStack are collaborators who live in Columbus, United States with their two daughters, and are committed to the domestic as a place of unruly possibility—a portal for emotional logic, fragmentation, and new narratives that allows the quotidian to inform the sublime. Dani is associate professor at Ohio State University. Sheilah is associate professor at Denison University.

Accessibility

Western Front’s rear gallery is a ground-floor, wheelchair-accessible space with a partially accessible all-gender bathroom. Further details about accessibility at Western Front can be found here.

What to expect: The event will take place in an intimate setting in a room with low red lighting. Backless stools will be provided for the audience to sit on, with accessible standing space and wheelchair-inclusive options available.

Acknowledgement

Presented with the support of the Government of Canada.

Shameless Light at Gallery 400, photo documentation, Oct 9, 2018. Photo courtesy of Dani and Sheilah ReStack.

Shameless Light at Gallery 400, photo documentation, Oct 9, 2018. Photo courtesy of Dani and Sheilah ReStack.
Portrait of Randy Lee Cutler.

Portrait of Randy Lee Cutler.
Portrait of Amber Dawn. Photo by Sarah Race.

Portrait of Amber Dawn. Photo by Sarah Race.
Portrait of Sidney Gordon.

Portrait of Sidney Gordon.
Portrait of Fegor Obuwoma.

Portrait of Fegor Obuwoma.
Portrait of Jen Sungshine.

Portrait of Jen Sungshine.
Portrait of Valérie d. Walker. Photo by Patryk Tom.

Portrait of Valérie d. Walker. Photo by Patryk Tom.
Portrait of Dani and Sheilah ReStack.

Portrait of Dani and Sheilah ReStack.

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.