Those of us whom spent my youth in the united states into the 1960s and 70s lacked art, Bible tales, and history as universal recommendations. The tome that shaped our values most tangibly had been the emporium catalogue, a wish guide of that which we might have and who we’re able to be as soon as it was got by us. Gender had been plainly defined, competition 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’ve paired women’s formals (a appearance we now have had trouble effectively fitting into) with restroom plumbing work to invoke 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 an hour or so

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

Astroart area Corps

Commanders Dempsey and Millan are preparing to enter space that is deep to produce 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 and also the revolutionary, the reviled while the revered are united by locks in this time travelling sing-along. Through the wigged females of Ancient Rome into the hirsute levels of seventeenth century France to those extremely hairy 1960s: the world’s many infamous queen traces the real history of radical tresses while thinking democracy.

“we want personal revolution. I would like to cut back package tops, and purchase one out of the mail. I’d like anachronism and misconception, and also the anachronistic misconception that things are certain to get better. I would like to be pretty and just a little tragic, not too tragic for the reason that it would make me personally dead. “

Duration: 35 min.

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

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 since the female costume that is ceremonial icon of femininity. During these pieces, fabric is changed by not likely materials, producing juxtaposition, brand brand 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 associated with the times: the house/dress is her shimmering, clean fortress along with her jail. Through the piece she reveals her worries (such as for instance gravity, or perhaps worries that “parts of my dangerously sagging self might end in bad neighborhoods”) and her dreams (border city romances, getting straight down with dust, as well as the reduction of her household, herself more fully to being a homemaker) so she will have time to devote. The sculpture/costume that is wearable been exhibited at numerous free 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? You can do all the meals, as well as in a matter of hours somebody has gone and dirtied them once more? That young ones are small magnets that are grime picking right up all types of stubborn spots and bringing them house once again? Well, I Am thinking. If i really could eliminate of my loved ones, it might effortlessly cut might work load by 60%. ”

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 just like a two-dimensional carnival cutout with holes on her fingers and mind, the gown is really a colourful and explicit rendering associated with Virgin Mary’s familiar apparel, with an unique peek-a-boo panel of clear cup to show the main for the Madonna’s fame: her 2000 hymen that is year-old. Inside her never-the-same-twice visitations, Mary feedback on love, solution, as well as the males inside her life.

“When he comes for you on a night that is dream-filled 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 previous 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 sizable ball dress, constructed of crisp white paper, similar to a debutante gown. Stiff and translucent, delicate yet unyielding, the gown rustles noisily as Dempsey moves and talks.

The many complexities of desire are discussed, including the many ways desire can be negated within this costume. The purity and purity for the gown, the available expression of “wanting”, in addition to sweetness of distribution, together create a presumption that the thing of love talked about may be the conventional heterosexual partner. But, these social presumptions are confronted through the final portion of the piece, as she finally, clearly, reveals the carnality of her wish to have an other woman.

“i would like you, to desire me personally. I really want you to definitely wish me, also though I do not really would like you. I do not would like you after all, but i would like everybody else to. I would like everybody else to would like you, but I do not desire you to definitely wish someone else but me personally. All i’d like can be your want. ”

The milf and tranny Dress: vellum, packing tape, Velcro

Duration: five full minutes

First performed: Red Deer university, Alberta, December 1988 (previously variation done in 1987 before Dempsey started collaboration with Millan)

Picture by Lorri Millan

The performer wears an iconic wedding gown, the classic raiment of femininity, virginity and promise in Plastic Bride. Nonetheless, the gown’s meant meaning is changed by its construction, from veil to teach, of clear plastic. The materials encases the bride suggesting more references that are clinical human anatomy bags and systematic specimens, or commodities bagged and exhibited to buy. Disturbing, dream-like and funny, love and fashion, desire and denial are done inside the gown’s unforgiving folds.

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

The Dress: clear plastic, fishing line, buttons

Duration: 20 moments