"Queering Citizenship"

Opening reception: Thursday, May 15, 6-9pm

Satellite Gallery's Queering Citizenship reflects a landscape that is socially and politically diverse. By considering the climate of queer citizens in Eastern Europe and Africa, the exhibition poses the question, “How might art and culture help us to look again at the way in which we understand the conditions of queer citizens in global politics?” The artists in the exhibition engage with the term queer not only as an identity that embraces different sexualities, genders, international and transnational backgrounds, but as a verb: as in queering or rethinking the familiar ways citizenship and belonging are defined.

Responding to citizenship by representing individual narratives as well as abstracted forms, the works communicate an archive of feelings and memories. The artists present different perspectives in their expression of history, place and the location of a culture of pride. The various methods of display, signage, postering and music-video anthem queer our experience of the gallery space and expand the cultural imagination in a nervous present. The artists each show a deep connection to an understanding of place and citizenship.

The exhibition includes works by Canadian-based and international artists Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan, Francisco-Fernando Granados, Igor Grubić, Kevin Madill, Naufus Ramírez-Figuroa, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay and Pascal Lièvre, Emily Roysdon and Alize Zorlutuna.

Queering Citizenship is curated by Derrick Chang, a Master's candidate in the Critical and Curatorial Studies program at the University of British Columbia.