Over the last 40 years photographic visual artist, Del LaGrace Volcano has used what they describe as a ‘queer feminist methodology’ which is a way of working that is invested in making work with speaking subjects. A process of ‘persistent desire’ and continuous collaboration. This methodology exposes and queers the problematic violence of the conventional (heteronormative) subject/object photographic relationship.
Most recently they are employing this same methodology to co-create their archive with Christie Costello. While desire’s place in the archival encounter has been extensively explored in scholarship and artistic practice, the role of what Joan Nestle has termed ‘erotic exchange’ in the material production of the archive has been under-explored.
In these three video presentations, Volcano and Costello will discuss how their relationship is, in turn, characterised by a dynamic of polymorphous desires, in which the fixed scholar’s archive is required to mutate and transform. This living archive is a rhizomic intergenerational duet that speaks to questions of intimacy, sexuality and the power of vulnerability.
WARNING: The following presentations contain images of an explicit nature and adult themes.
Part 1: An Archive of the Queer Selves
Part 2: A Queer Feminist Methodology
Part 3: The Queer Archive of Speaking Subjects + Q&A
References:
- Bare Minimum Manifesto: Bare Minimum Collective, ‘The Bare Minimum Manifesto’
- Kate Millett: Shulevitz, Judith, ‘Kate Millett: “Sexual Politics” & Family Values’, The New York Review of Books, 2017
- Womyn’s Lands: Anderson-Minshall, Diane, ‘Back to the Future: In Oregon and Other States, the Land Dyke Movement Continues to Flourish.’, Curve, 2011
- Julian Bond: NAACP, ‘NAACP History: Julian Bond’
- Barbara Hammer: Hammer, Barbara, ‘Dyketactics & Other Films from the 1970s’
- Chain Reaction: Lloyd, Kate, ‘Meet the Lesbian Punks Who’ve Been Written out of London’s History’, Time Out Magazine, 2017
- Samois: Rubin, Gayle, ‘Samois’, Leather Times, 2004, pp. 3–7
- Susie Bright: Bright, Susie, ‘Susie Bright’
- Mojisola Adebayo: Adebayo, Mojisola, ‘Mojisola Adebayo | Actor, Playwright, Director, Producer and Teacher’
- Derek Jarman: Tate, ‘Derek Jarman 1942–1994’
- On Our Backs: ‘ON OUR BACKS: AN ARCHIVE – The Newbridge Project’, 2017
- Lesbian Sex Mafia: Lesbian Sex Mafia, ‘About Us’
- Kate Bornstein: ‘Kate Bornstein: Welcome!’ Shannon Bell: York University, ‘Shannon Bell: Profile’