Show is part of semester-long’ Gender Euphoria ‘ forum to ‘ create artwork,’ ‘ find gay joy’
The University of Michigan is hosting a semester-long” Gender Euphoria” conference featuring a “lesbian-feminist disturbed apartment” and a carry performance by one of the common institution’s personal professors.
The conference, hosted by the school’s Stamps School of Art and Design, aims to “make skill and get queer joy” within a present” state of emergency” through shows, exhibits, conversations, and provocations.
On Saturday, it will have an occasion called Killjoy’s Kastle Unplugged. Makers describe the efficiency as a “lesbian-feminist disturbed home” designed to help participants “unpack, accept or thoroughly return” female record for the “queer present”. The celebration is open to the public and is free.
A description of previous performances on the developers ‘ website says customers, guided by a” Demented Women’s Studies Professor”, are taken through several areas to see players dressed as “political indoctrinators” and “lesbian movie”.
The areas include:” The Crypt of Dead Lesbian Organizations, Companies, and Ideas”,” The Giant Bearded Clam and Her Familiar”,” The Terrifying Tunnel of Two Adult Women in Love”, and” The Intersectional Activist Wrestling with the Crumbling Pillars of Society”.
One room showcases paintings with phrases such as” Do n’t slip on the pussy juice”,” Do n’t trip over the severed penises”, and” Expect nudity”.
According to the designers ‘ website, those who line up in line for the show are greeted by singers reciting lines from scripts encouraging them to read anti-men publications before going to bed.
” I wrote this book, the SCUM Manifesto. Society of Cutting Up Men”, the storyline reads. You ought to learn it, I advise. every night before going to sleep. Also, read it to your very, very, very little children, every night–in gestation is greatest”.
According to an event website on the University of Southern California website, the Killjoy’s Kastle task got its start a few years ago with funding from the York University of Toronto, Canada. The college hosted the show in 2015.
In a picture from a previous Toronto show, dressed women wearing spirit masks show off their genitalia, and performers encourage visitors to consume “witch kick.” The exhibit’s creators also sell a 13-minute video of the performance online — advertising it for “educational” purposes.
Art Professor Holly Hughes is in charge of the “lesbian-feminist haunted house” and other projects funded by the University of Michigan symposium. In a recent interview with Hyperallergic, the professor expressed her excitement about the” Gender Euphoria” events.
Although I always wanted to do that, I did n’t want to just celebrate queer art making, but I believed queer artists had something important to offer in this particular period of overlapping states of emergency, Hughes said.
Over the past week, The College Fix contacted Hughes twice via email for comment regarding the symposium, but she did not respond. Additionally, The Fix‘s emails asking about the educational value of the symposium were not responded to by the university’s media relations office.
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The symposium also will feature a drag queen performance by Professor Larry La Fountain-Stokes as” Lola von Miramar”, according to Hyperallergic.
La Fountain teaches in the UM Department of American Culture, including the courses” Drag in America”,” Gender and Sexuality in Latin America and the Caribbean”, and” Engaging Performance”.
Other events included a Sept. 12 performance and lecture by Phranc, ( pictured ) a self-titled “all-American Jewish lesbian folksinger”.
Over the past month, the university’s Institute for the Humanities Gallery displayed” The Butch Closet”, an exhibit Phranc designed to further explore the “intricacies of self” and the “butch lesbian identity”.
The replicas of “personal objects and pieces of clothing” that Phranc created using paper and cardboard “re-imagine]e her image in the context of a larger historical context of second-wave feminism and queer activism are on display.
Phranc’s songs include lyrics such as” White means money and white means might but that do n’t mean that white’s always right”.
In addition, the art school is offering a three-credit” Gender Euphoria” course this fall.
According to the course’s description, students will study bodies labeled as “different” and explore how they are” not only sites of trauma and alienation” but also of “desire, dissent, creativity, and celebration”.
The symposium is funded” with generous support from the Penny W Stamps School of Art and Design, CEW+, the School of Music, Theater and Dance, the Center for World Performance Studies, the Institute for the Humanities, the Stamps Gallery, the Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series, and the State Theater”, according to its website.
The University of Michigan is a public, taxpayer-funded institution. Its motto is” Arts, Knowledge, Truth”.
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IMAGES: Killjoy’s Kastle website, University of Michigan Stamps School of Art and Design
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