Disrupting Binaries
curated by Corinna Ghaznavi
as a part of the Cold Cuts Video Festival, in Dawson City, Yukon
In conjunction with the Dawson City International Film Festival

Disrupting Binaries brings together five women artists from across Canada. Lisa Birke challenges female cultural tropes by setting up uncomfortable and absurdist scenarios; Amanda Dawn Christie stages a car crash that focuses on the calm after the storm; Kelly Mark sets up a dialogue with herself that contemplates isolation and intention; Marina Roy explores an alternative way of being where women and animals coexist without the demands of reproduction and labour; and Leslie Supnet investigates a range of human emotion with topics such as sincerity, identity, race, and death.
 
Taken together, the exhibition juxtaposes pathos and irony, tragedy and beauty, psychoanalysis, biopolitics, and feminism, by creating alternative realities, presenting imagined other ways of being, and unsettling established notions of art history, mythology, and identity politics. Although humour, awe, and spectacle underlie much of the work, the striving towards a better world is deadly serious.

The Selection of these five artists is based on the curatorial premise, which challenges established tropes and investigates both utopias and absurdist alternatives. The program focuses particularly on women artists of different generations working with video and animation; additionally, artists who insinuated themselves, imaginatively or performatively, into the work. Consideration was also given to bringing together five artists from different regions across Canada, in this case New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.

Opening Reception: Friday March 25, 4pm - 6pm