Events
Presented 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, the Arts Initiative, and the State Theater.
**All events are free and open to the public**
**All events are free and open to the public**
Artist Talk
5:30 pm
Michigan Theater
Nov. 22nd
Gender Discard Party
4:30-5:30 pm
Stamps Gallery
Nayland Blake joins us as part of the Penny W Stamps Speaker Series.
Tear down our walls: the creative drive and reimagining ourselves. Nayland Blake shares their history as an artist, curator and educator in a talk about how crucial the creative process is in imagining new possibilities for us as individuals and communities.
Gender Discard Party
Bring an item that represents an aspect of your gender that you are done with. Bring the item and share your story. Place that item in the gender disposal area. Help yourself to anyone else’s discards. Celebrate!
Past Events
Sept. 12th
5:30 pm
Michigan Theater
6:30-8:00 pm
Opening Reception at the Institute for the Humanities Gallery
Phranc, the All-American Jewish Lesbian Folksinger, is an internationally acclaimed performer and visual artist whose work uses both humor and anger to interrogate traditional gender perspectives. She has forged her butch identity in cardboard, on stage, and on album covers and will kickoff the Penny Stamps Distinguished speaker series.
Following the lecture/performance, walk around the block to the opening reception for The Butch Closet, at the Institute for the Humanities Gallery.
4:30 pm
State Theater
FREE SCREENING
Join Phranc and filmmaker Lisa Udelson for a screening Lifetime Guarantee/Adventures in Plastics. The award-winning documentary follows Phranc, a Jewish lesbian folk singer who reached notable fame in the 1980s, in her new escapades as a Tupperware saleswoman. The film displays Phranc's joy that comes with her new occupation as well as the success she finds in her unique sales approach. However, it also delves into the politics of being a butch lesbian in an industry among housewives and executives not accustomed to her lifestyle
5:00 - 7:00 pm
Stamps Gallery
**reservations closed, maximum capacity reached**
In this 2 hour workshop, participants will be introduced to the fundamentals of crocheting by learning to make glow-in-the-dark, larger-than-life crocheted spider webs. Finished webs will be featured in the Gender Euphoria pop-up dialogue space at the Stamps Gallery. During this workshop, participants will also be introduced to the work of several queer fiber artists participating in the series Gender Euphoria. No skills or materials needed. Registration required.
This workshop is in partnership with the Arts Initiative and is taught by Leah Crosby.
Long table #1: Placemaking/Community Building
11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Stamps Gallery
Long table #2:
How to Make Art In a State of Emergency
2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Stamps Gallery
The Long Table is a dinner party structured by etiquette, where conversation is the only course. Join a group of queer artists, art makers, scholars, and community members for two separate windows of conversation--attend one or both.
Long table #1, Placemaking/Community Building, will explore Queer artists’ long history of creating, making, sustaining spaces and alternative institutions.Long table #2, How to Make Art In a State of Emergency, will focus on the ways that artists engage with archives to imagine queer futures.
click for MORE INFO on the artists joining the conversation.
4:30 pm, doors open
5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Stamps Gallery
Celebrate the publication of Jill Johnston in Motion: Dance, Writing, and Lesbian Life by University of Michigan professor Clare Croft, and My Butch Career, by queer icon Esther Newton. The discussion will be moderated by New York-based queer arts critic, Ksenia M. Soboleva. Doors open at 4:30 for tea, coffee, cookies and conversation with the writers, reading begins at 5.
5:30 pm doors and music
6:00 pm performance
Stamps Gallery
Killjoy’s Kastle is a large-scale, multimedia, walk-through installation and performance that evokes all the fright in lesbian-feminist histories so that we might unpack, reject, or critically recover these stories for the queer present.
In the “Unplugged” version, artists Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue present a sort of “exploded artist talk” with images, video, sculptural elements from the larger work, and some live reading and performances, featuring local queer performers. Musical contributions from Iconic Chronic.
graphic design, Steven Hixson | site design, Leah Crosby | copyright 2024