Drawing Queer Stories Workshop
Drawing Queer Stories
A free workshop series with Coco Guzman
MONDAY, JULY 1, 6 – 9 PM: “Failing” Drawing Beautifully: strategies for freeing queer drawing
TUESDAY, JULY 2, 6 – 9 PM: Drawing Queer Archives: from objects and pictures
WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 6 – 9 PM: Drawing Queer Memories: from your mind, ears and heart
SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1 – 4 PM: Interventions/Interruptions
Workshop participants are invited back to the gallery to intervene in and interact with the mural/installation
Eastern Edge Gallery
Free; pre-registration is appreciated!
e-mail retroflexart@gmail.com to reserve a spot
Sometimes the things we want to say are not always easy. It is hard to put them into words. Sometimes they appear as colours, drawings, abstract poems, music. Sometimes we don’t know how to express them at all. Coco Guzman’s series of free drawing workshops are designed to help give form to those experiences to make a huge, collaborative exhibition that reflects the ongoing queer histories of St. John’s. Coco is a queer and genderqueer artist raised in Spain and currently living in Toronto. They have a long history as a grassroots, community artist, and have led multiple workshops for trans, queer, and gender non-conforming folks to express complex experiences.
Coco’s workshops are a follow-up to our Queer Story Circle and Zine-making workshops on June 22nd. Local artist, poet, and trans historian Daze Jefferies will provide audio recordings and archival materials to help inspire your contributions and tales of queer life in Newfoundland and Labrador. Coco invites you to revisit stories, memories, and experiences and will guide you through making drawings, murals, or other objects for inclusion in the exhibition “A Hole So Big It Became the Sky”. Working in collaboration with Coco and Daze, the exhibition will include recordings, murals, objects, drawings that paint a picture of our complex, collective queer histories. As stories and images are created and collected, it mimics the aesthetics of washroom tags and comments and pays tribute to understated forms of inscription and queer spaces.
“It is important to me that this piece serves as a witness; an archival exploration of queer life and imaginaries in NL.” -Coco Guzman