As part of Isolated Landscapes : Prairie Women in Video (1984-2009), Shawna Demspey & Lorri Millan will present Big Wig
when: November 17 | 8:30pm
where: Rachel Brown Theatre | 2nd floor, 211 Bannatyne Avenue
cost: $10 (make sure to pre-buy your tickets, this is sure to sell out!)
This performance was originally created for the June 2017 Queer City Cinema Camp, Trash, Filth festival in Regina, Saskatchewan. Dempsey and Millan have adapted it for a special performance during Isolated Landscapes. The revolting and the revolutionary, the reviled and the revered are united by hair in this time travelling sing-along. From the wigged women of Ancient Rome to the hirsute heights of 17th century France to those very hairy 1960s: the world’s most infamous queen traces the history of radical tresses while pondering democracy.
Shawna Dempsey & Lorri Millan
Collaborators since 1989, Shawna Dempsey & Lorri Millan are among Canada's best-known performance artists. They were catapulted into the international spotlight in their 20s with the performance and film We're Talking Vulva. Since then, their live work and videos have been exhibited in diverse venues as far-ranging as women's centres in Sri Lanka, the Istanbul Biennial, the Sydney Gay/Lesbian Mardi Gras and the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. This duo has also created installations (such as Archaeology and You for the Royal Ontario Museum), books (such as Bedtime Stories for the Edge of the World, ARP Books, 2012) and socially engaged public art projects (such as Winnipeg Tarot Co. for the Winnipeg Arts Council). Dempsey and Millan have contributed to the publications as writers and editors, and have curated festivals, programs and exhibitions for Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Centre (Buffalo), Gallery YYZ (Toronto) and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. However, performance remains their focus. Performance documentation and artifacts are held in collections including the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian History Museum, the DIA Art Foundation and universities throughout North America. Their live work has been acclaimed as “one of the high-points of contemporary Canadian artistic production” (Border Crossings). But to many, they are known as the Lesbian Rangers, serving the lesbian ecosystem from dawn to dusk and well beyond.
The venue is wheelchair accessible.