Fruit Salad: A Series of Queer and Gender-Nonconforming Videos & Performances is available for viewing online.
The project is a collaboration between Owens Art Gallery and Struts Gallery & Faucet Media Centre, otherwise known as Umbrella Projects.
In an essay written by the co-curators Hannah Bridger, Emily Falvey and Lucas Morneau, the project is described as “a mélange of videos and filmed performances that explore gender performativity and celebrate masquerade, personas, and other fluid forms of identity.”
Co-curator and director of the Owens Art Gallery, Emily Falvey, says Fruit Salad is a passion project.
"I knew that I wanted to do some programming in the fall around the idea of drag, costume, and persona, because it’s an interest of mine. I also felt like that would be something that would appeal to students. That was political without being really heavy, that it could be fun and joyful," Falvey said.
Co-curator Lucas Morneau was approached to feature their work in Fruit Salad while they were still living in Newfoundland.
Since then, Morneau moved to Sackville and became the Struts & Faucet Media Centre production manager.
Their work, “Meet Ze Mummer,” features their drag alter-ego the Queer Mummer.
"I thought it would be hilarious to take that simple process of unmasking and make it into a burlesque routine or a strip routine," Morneau says. "So the video itself uses a remixed version of PJ Harvey’s 'Meet Ze Monsta,' and in it the Queer Mummer, originally dressed as a normal Mummer, strips down layers of heavy crocheted clothing to reveal more layers of heavy crocheted clothing."
Falvey says the pandemic is impacting accessibility to queer venues and spaces, some of which are closing due to loss of business.
She says that "Fruit Salad" will also be projected in the window of the Owens Art Gallery to provide "a physical manifestation of queer culture on [Mount Allison] campus."
Artists featured in Fruit Salad include blackpowerbarbie, The Clichettes, Marissa Sean Cruz, Maya Ben David, Séamus Gallagher, Jillian Mayer, Lucas Morneau, Tom Rubnitz, Victoria Sin, Ariel Smith and Feather Talia.
The previous title of the project contained the term “gender-critical,” which has since been changed to “gender non-conforming.”
The Owens was alerted by the public that the term “gender-critical” has been co-opted by trans-exclusionists. In an apology statement by the co-curators released on Facebook, they say the following regarding the use of the term:
“Fruit Salad was born of a desire to hold space for and celebrate LGBTQ2S+ culture and communities online and on campus at a time when safe community spaces are being eroded. We apologize unreservedly for any harm we have caused our transgender friends, audiences, and colleagues. Thank you for holding us to account and helping us out of our ignorance with kindness.”
Co-curator Hannah Bridger, who was interviewed after the name change, says that the curating team "overlooked a detail."
"When we came up with the subtitle for the project, it was kind of reverse engineered out of what our goals were for the project. And because everything came together so fast, we didn’t get to do as much research into the wording of that as we should have. It was brought to our attention by some community members that “gender-critical” is a dog whistle for TERFs, which was totally not what we wanted to do with the exhibition and was not supposed to be a part of it at all."
The project is being extended and can be viewed online at umbrellaprojects.ca.