This exhibition has been postponed.
there is no hiding here
Maddie Alexander
Felix Niska Juniper
B.G-Osborne
Lou Sheppard
Curated by Dan Cardinal McCartney
With 2396 hours of daylight, Mohkinstsis (Calgary) is the sunniest place in Kkkanada. [1] Transitional times of day are perfect occasions to leave the house if you’re terribly depressed and haven’t witnessed the sun in 27 hours. Dawn and dusk are non binary times. Neither day or night, this transitional time is like non binary identities: ever nuanced, fluid, and yet fixed. During sunlight hours a big, bright sky illuminates distances between one safe building and another.
This is for the trans artists who get hassled when they leave their residence.
This is for the trans artists who get misgendered in art folx communities.
This is for the trans artists who work smart and cheap because employment as a trans person of colour is a barrier.
This is for the trans artists who find moments of respite in a binary, dangerous society. there is no hiding here is for artists Maddie Alexander, Felix Niska Juniper, B.G-Osborne, and Lou Sheppard who move through binary time, space, and the gender confines.
[1] Snotty Nose Rez Kids, “Kkkanada,” 2017, #4 on The Average Savage, Independent, 2017, Spotify.
This exhibition is produced as a part of Stride Gallery’s curatorial mentorship program.
Felix Niska Juniper
Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs or He/Him/His
Felix Niska Juniper is a Two Spirit artist working in so called Calgary from so called
Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Their work discusses power dynamics, The Monsterous Queer and self identifiers of Queer, Intersex and Indigenous leanings.
Maddie Alexander
Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs
Maddie Alexander is a queer, trans non-binary artist, arts facilitator, archivist, and educator. Their multidisciplinary practice interrogates experiences of queer sovereignty. They hold a BFA in Photography from OCAD University, and are currently an MFA candidate at NSCAD University. Their work has been exhibited locally and internationally and they received the Project 31 Photography Award in 2016. They have participated in multiple residencies, panels, artist talks, and lectures.
Their work examines the precarity of queer spaces, and representations of queer and trans experience in pop culture and mass media. They approach this through a community-oriented practice and utilize DIY techniques to produce environmental experiences. Their work pulls from sourced materials, as well as personal narrative to explore themes of desire, failure, connection, and dissonance.
B.G-Osborne
Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs
B.G-Osborne is a gender variant settler of Scottish and British descent originally hosted on Treaty 20 territory/Southern Ontario, currently working in Tio’tia:ke/Montréal.
Osborne’s ongoing projects seek to address the complexities and revisionary potential of gender-variant representation/embodiment, and unpack their experiences with mental illness and well-kept family secrets. They place great importance in showcasing their work in artist run centres and non-commercial galleries across Turtle Island.
Lou Sheppard
Pronouns: They/Them/Theirs
Lou Sheppard is a Canadian artist working in interdisciplinary audio, performance and installation based practice. Sheppard has exhibited work both in Canada and internationally, notably in the first Toronto Biennial, in the first Antarctic Biennale and the Antarctic Pavilion in Venice. In 2017 Sheppard received the Emerging Atlantic Artist Award and in 2018 they were an international residency recipient of the Sobey Art Award for a residency at ISCP in Brooklyn.
In their current practice Sheppard uses processes of translation and metaphor to interrogate structures of power and performativity in data and language. These interrogations of language have led them to work with a wide variety of source texts- diagnostic criteria from the DSM V, field recordings of birdsong, sea ice tracking data, executive management principles, government policy among others. Their work is evidenced through installation, performance, and score and often leads them to collaborate with communities and other artists, including musicians, dancers, visual artists and performing artists.
Dan Cardinal McCartney:
Pronouns: He/Him/His
Dan Cardinal McCartney is a Calgary-based interdisciplinary artist and emerging curator. His maternal bloodlines are a proud mix of Mikisew Cree, SulineDene, and Métis from FortChipewyan although he was born in Fort McMurray. As a two-spirit, transmasculine person, Dan sifts through questions of blood memory and intergenerational trauma. His focus is on mixed media collage, performance, and video.
Cardinal McCartney is the Curatorial Resident at Stride Gallery, and actively showing across Canada. He graduated from AUArts (formerly known as the Alberta College of Art + Design) in 2016 with a degree in Drawing. Recently, his work was featured in Fix your hearts or die at the Alberta Gallery of Art; let’s talk about sex, bb at Agnes Etherington Arts Centre, and Off-Centre: Queer Contemporary Art in the Prairies at the Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina.
Stride Gallery is located in Mohkinstsis, the traditional territories of Treaty 7 people. Our activities take place on the land that was, for a long time, stewarded and cared for by the Blackfoot Confederacy (comprising the Siksika, Piikani, and Kainai First Nations), Tsuut’ina First Nation, and the Iyarhe/Stoney Nakoda people comprising the Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Wesley First Nations. The City of Calgary is also home to Métis Nation of Alberta, Region III.