Experimental, passionate, and irreverent, Shawna Dempsey
and Lorri Millan are two of Canada’s best known performance artists.
Collaborators since 1989, this Winnipeg-based duo were catapulted into
the national spotlight in their 20s with the controversial, now world-renowned
performance piece, We’re Talking Vulva. Since then, this acclaimed
duo has toured extensively throughout North America, Europe, Australia,
and Japan, their film and video works being screened in venues as far-ranging
as women's centres in Sri Lanka to the Museum of Modern Art in New York
City. They have also created installations (Archaeology and You for
the Royal Ontario Museum), published books (Lesbian National Parks &
Services Field Guide to North America, Pedlar Press), and curated exhibitions
(recently as Adjunct Curators at The Winnipeg Art Gallery). They have
been acclaimed as “one of the high-points of contemporary Canadian
artistic production.” (Border Crossings)
Read a response
to Millan and Dempsey's
Unruly by Bowen Smyth
Unruly
What would a feminist superhero look like? Could she leap tall buildings in a single bound? Could she bend steel with her bare hands? What would her name be? And would anyone remember it? For a new performance, commissioned by MAWA's Art Building Community Symposium, performance artists Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan have created an aging superhero with unusual powers. Watch as she wrestles the notion of "super" to the ground! In light of reality TV and celebrity culture, where everyone who wants to be a superstar can be, does "super" still exist at all? The work features a spandex-clad hero, a multi-media history of masked avengers and caped crusaders and astonishing feats of bravery.
Artists' Statement
In the self-created world of the performance space, our characters have
the freedom to make their own self-definitions. These personae gleefully
disrupt the images and lessons contained in all the stories and codes
that have shaped us. They subvert and pervert accepted meanings, and re-tell
tall tales truly. By making people laugh, we open them up to thinking
differently. By placing our physical bodies in the work, we perform our
realities into existence.
Artist website http://fingerinthedyke.ca/
UNRULY
PAST WORK
Lesbian National Parks and ServicesPhoto: Don Lee, The Banff Centre
Tableau Vivant: Eaton's Catalogue 1976Photo: Paul Litherland
Arborite HousedressPhoto: Sheila Spence
ScentbarPhoto: Cindy Baker
Consideration Liberation ArmyPhoto: William Eakin
Target MarketingPhoto: William Eakin