0:02

okay we’re gonna get started hello everyone and welcome to our pride panel with nasra harley mormon and cedar t

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we also have don carter from the edmonton pride center our community partner for this program

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my name is michael magnuson i am the new public program and outreach coordinator at the art gallery of alberta to start this program i would

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like to do a land acknowledgement we are currently broadcasting from edmonton which is on treaty 6 territory

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the traditional lands of diverse indigenous peoples including the cree blackfoot metis nakota sioux iroquois denney inuit

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ojobway salto and nishinave we acknowledge and extend gratitude to the many first nations metis and inuit whose

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footsteps have marked these lands for generations and who continue to call this place home today

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june is pride month and to mark the occasion we have invited three artists to discuss their art practice

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and their work on display at the art gallery of alberta nasra and cedar t are both showing video works

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on the screens of our brand new sidewalk cinema which is currently on display uh on the street facing screen

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and you know you can check that out now the screens run from 10 am to 10 pm

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we also have harley mormon who will display their artwork in our rbc newer gallery in the fall

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each artist will introduce their practice and then we will start a pound discussion as a group at the end of the program there will be

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a few moments for a q a so if you have any questions for a q a please use the use the q

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a function and we will try to answer them at the end before we get started i want to thank

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our sponsors our agi aga live digital programs are made possible in part through support

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from the heart and soul fund by epcor i’d also like to thank the canada council for the arts who support our

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digital programs okay now i would like to introduce don carter from the pride center

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who was invited here to speak about some of the great work they are doing in the community so uh take away dawn

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so hello my name is dawn carter and i’m the executive director of the pride center of edmonton

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so thank you all for coming special event and thank you to the aga and their

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partners and sponsors um thank you to the aga for reaching out to us to partner on something truly remarkable

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for pride month so this year the pride center has gone virtual

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and we wanted to help bring the community together since we can’t have a full-on celebration in

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person and we also felt it was our opportunity to talk about the center and what we do so the pride center

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enriches and improves the lives of 2s lgbtq plus people their allies and the broader community

2:54

in the greater edmonton area with our programs and services and we maintain a safe space

3:00

that welcomes everyone who walks through our doors and as we say it’s always pride of the

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pride center because we serve our communities and our allies all year long

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we offer educational workshops and classes for businesses organizations and groups we offer free

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volunteer run community programming and while most of that programming is on

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hiatus right now because of covid19 restrictions we’ve been able to run our core

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programming for the last year and a half which is still continuing

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and these things include our queer out for youth on wednesday nights

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it’s for queer and gender diverse youth ages 13 to 24. on thursday nights we have our lgbt

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newcomer group with the edmonton mennonite center for newcomers settlement practitioner we have gsa

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roundtables every third thursday of the month we have free counseling sessions on

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tuesdays and thursdays in partnership with the family center we also have a binder exchange program

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which provides folks in edmonton with free binders as gender affirming undergarments

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and what are we working on now so we’re under renovations so we’re not quite yet to

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fully open our doors we’re renovating our space to make it more accessible to community members and

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partners we’re working on strengthening our organizational foundations

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as many of our team members are quite new to the center we’re working hard to be a truly

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inclusive anti-racist anti-oppressive organization focused on a zero-harm

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harm reduction approach in our work and we’ve also made an effort to put community first by ramping up

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our social media presence sending out community surveys and strengthening our relationships with

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our community partners so please stay tuned for our final events for pride month

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so tomorrow night we will be partnering with metro cinema to screen the show the nfb short film i

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am gay uh with the full feature film pariah and on june the 30th for queer out

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uh lady tenderflake will be giving uh amazing drag performance so

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uh just to finish up i encourage all of you to be a part of the pride center family

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to learn more about us please visit our website at pridecenter of edmonton.ca

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join our mailing list and follow us on instagram at yagpridecenter on facebook at

5:46

yagpride and on twitter at yagpride so on that note it is my pleasure

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to introduce a friend of mine who um i have just been able to witness

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um in this wonderful transformation over the last few years so it is my

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great deep pleasure to introduce the artist nasra

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wow did you all feel that y’all felt that from dawn huh thank you so much thank you so much for

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all the work that you’re doing um and i’m really happy to be here

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virtually digitally um as i said my name is nasra it’s a soft s

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soft um and i come from the beautiful fertile lands

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of oromiya which is native to my people the odomo people

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and the somali people it is colonially known as ethiopia and

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i everything i am as a poet everything i am as a person it has to do with

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the earth that i come from and um some of the photos that y’all are seeing

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um come from a piece that i’ll be talking about in a little bit that is showing at the aga sidewalk cinema called shea

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which is about my home and how i have managed to carry her with me

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um and even though i was born and bred

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um on what is colonially known as canada i’m from alberta from ontario

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um and [Music] everywhere that i have been

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makes its way into the art that i make as a theater practitioner

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maker and creator of worlds and spaces for black and brown

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imagination to flourish i’m very invested in the queerness of the everyday

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the the ways that we relate to each other that um that

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push up against the challenge that burn that that destroy that lovingly call in

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the structures we have uh of violence i’m really interested in the way

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that black indigenous people indigenous people all over the world um hold strong and hold and hold soft at

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the same time i am the big papa to a

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festival that has been running for the last four years called black arts matter and i’m very grateful to that space

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it is transforming just as i am just as a lot of us are into more of a platform um

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but we’re taking our time i i also um have been making

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a lot of music lately this piece shay um in this picture you see the

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beautiful imani khalifa a gorgeous drag queen comes from my lands um this piece is on

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an album that came out almost a year ago which y’all can check out on band camp i will have my links um

9:31

but every song on the album is uh named after a medicine an earth medicine

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an herb plant and so you can get to know me in a little bit of my

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my personal ins and outs the growth that i’ve gone through over the last um four or five

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years as an artist as a human person uh through that piece of work

9:54

and i’m really excited that it’s out in the world um i am also

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very dedicated to spiritual and creative facilitation

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so i have been working very deeply in understanding the connections to

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spiritual wellness and emotional wellness and mental wellness um and art and how they are

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intrinsic you can see this this picture of a little baby

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getting her hair done by her mom’s um this is the kind of art i believe in and

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i am really grateful to be to be queer and to be here

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and to be able to share my voice in as many languages that it comes

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as again a theater artist as a musician as a poet as a lover of imani

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these photos distracting um but i guess the last thing that i would

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like to um let y’all in on is

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yes that’s the album cover is um a newer a newer piece called dna play that we’ll

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be showcasing um next season next year um under the riser program at common

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ground arts another fire um albertan

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um initiative that is making room for me to

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explore movement and explore a ritual and explore um my dna

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allows me to play in my dna um and see what kind of messages uh

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need to be unearthed and how i can fit them in the or how they can be how they can

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be witnessed as a part of the albertan narrative around what art is here

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so that’s that’s that all me y’all gonna hear about me later

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um but please check out um sal of the album it is an offering to

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anyone that needs healing during this time and um i’m very excited to be part of

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this conversation and the next artist that y’all will

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get to experience um is the wonderful wonderful harley mormon

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and i will let you take it away oh my goodness thank you so much nasra

12:44

those photos were so beautiful and i can’t wait to hear more about them um so my talk i’m gonna talk a little

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bit probably more formally because i won’t be able to help myself because i’m reading here i need to admit it um but i’m

12:58

i’m harley mormon i’m a queer and trans visual artist um i grew up in a tiny little town along

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the minnesota river called franklin on what was traditional dakota land

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and my parents were settlers from french and german parents um i

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immigrated to canada after i finished high school immediately as fast as i could

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uh back in 1997 and spent about 15 years in saskatoon before coming to alberta um i’m based in

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lethbridge now um and i’m in my fourth year which seems wild

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a phd program in social cultural and political thought which is basically like a

13:38

multi-disciplinary theory program um so i’ll say a little bit about my art

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and uh and i’ll talk about a few things specifically uh and maybe maybe at the very end i’ll

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give like a little preview depending on how it goes uh of what i’m gonna be showing at the aga

13:57

so using interactive play and materials drawn from childhoods

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archives my work attempts to propose new ways of moving through social and physical space

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it wrestles with questions of belonging and socialization into uh the circles and communities that

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people choose to become a part of um whether they’re professional communities um artistic communities like

14:24

the art community um the queer community um or other identity-based computer

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communities um so how does how does a person um become recognized by their peers as

14:36

belonging and how is that belonging shaped by the institutions and communicative structures that we rub up against

14:42

in trying to become a part um uh sometimes my work try thinks it’s

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trying to offer kind of provisional answers or suggestions uh about this but mostly i think of it

14:56

as like trying to ask a bunch of questions and be um kind of unsettling and

15:03

disruptive oh thank you there’s the next image okay so i’ve used a lot of materials in my

15:09

work i don’t uh i’m not like a painter or a sculptor in that i’m drawn to specific

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materials but i use whatever i’m a conceptual artist and that i use whatever i need to in order to get across um whatever i’m

15:24

trying to communicate um so that is included recently in the past few used digital photography and

15:29

video um lenticular images um fused beads and other plastics

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uh he’s the final which i really love um at games uh and institutions themselves

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um it’s often uh funny uh like cheeky uh uh

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really colorful most of the time and maximalist um and text figures really prominently in

15:53

my work um the first image um was from a series called art party

15:59

which was portraits of queer oh oh there it is um portraits of queer and trans performance artists

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um and uh these three are part of the series of i think

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i think there were nine or ten total that those are approximately they’re slightly smaller than life-size

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um with the hankies so um oops

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can you go back to the the oh yeah so where we’re going uh we don’t need roads

16:29

this was part of a public commission that i did uh i guess in 2017 uh with uh

16:37

the rhodes department in calgary uh and that quote is uh of course the the like well-known

16:44

last line of back to the future so so i love i love wordplay and puns and

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gossip and uh like insinuation and uh text uh and ambiguity

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is really important in my practice um oh yeah you can okay so perfect um

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so um i want to say in my in my practice um i use a lot of

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materials and styles that are drawn from um like the archive of the past of

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childhood um but certainly like like vintage and retro looking stuff

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um i like rarely use like traditional high art materials and i

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really am compelled by um the nostalgic toys and materials uh and supplies that are

17:39

available uh that wouldn’t necessarily always be considered art um but that one might encounter um

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uh and uh this is like a purposeful strategy uh in my practice to um use play

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to talk like talk accessibly uh to lots of people uh about political and like theoretical

18:02

issues with like without like people necessarily thinking that they’re being

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um being lectured to or like it’s not like it’s less didactic if it looks if

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it looks fun um people will go for it and then i hit them with a message

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um so because um

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yeah okay so i’m gonna say so i i really like the

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play and i want my art to feel like play

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it because children’s play time is the way

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that they really make sense of the world um and cope with anxieties about

18:53

the world and about growing up um and a lot of my work um kind of is

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like also it incorporates an element of anxiety either like social anxiety or

19:07

generalized anxiety that you don’t know quite where it’s coming from but it feels kind of not right um even

19:14

though it is very colorful and it looks like it should be super fun

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but also there’s like it’s a little bit it’s a little bit like scary at the same way um and uh

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this show that i’m going to be uh putting up in the rbc gallery in october is a

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really good uh a really good example of this

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so um it’s called uh

19:42

it’s called uh what is it called oh god i’m forgetting it’s called let’s do the time work again

19:50

um and there there’s some images from it they’re they’re from the studio that i

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work in uh at printmaking at the university so um during my mfa uh

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a few years ago i i had the facilities and the equipment to

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to work with lenticular images um now everyone has seen lenticular images although you probably don’t know

20:15

like that they are called that it’s a bit of a technical word um but um there are the images that

20:22

use um rows of cylindrical lenses um to refract a different image to each

20:29

eye and they can do a couple different things either three three-dimensional images or flipping

20:36

back and forth so like um they’re like analog animated gifs and they’re often used in

20:43

like children’s toys and religious iconography and lots of advertising um like uh

20:49

stuff uses them um and they’re really considered like a novelty uh a novelty item they’re

20:56

they’re because they’re made of plastic they’re often not very good quality they’re like throw away

21:01

items um but i like to use it uh as a craft material because in my mfa

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i got entranced by lenticular stuff i in all sorts of ways

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um because uh because of their changeability and i thought heck this material is just

21:20

right for um like for for metaphor

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um yeah because because their their change ability um because they’re they’re like back and

21:33

forthness um is produced by

21:38

a body and it’s specific position in relation to the image when you sway back and forth um

21:45

you take just like a jump to the left it looks completely different um and

21:50

you’re seeing something else um and because because that that back and forth as i was there they

21:58

always kind of hold within them the promise of transforming to something else

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um with just like a little bit of movement um and that’s uh kind of really what i’m going to be

22:09

playing with um but uh yeah the the image before oh yeah there it is

22:16

so this is this is one of the images um from uh from let’s do the timer again and you

22:23

can see this is the the most trans body of work i’ve ever made but it’s hard to see that i apologize so

22:29

much for the photo quality it i just took it on my phone the other day because i’m like oh i really want to show

22:34

um something uh from the show but this is one of the images and they’ll be shown

22:41

eventually in light boxes but um in this component of the show i’m taking um school

22:48

portraits of myself um one each from grade five through grade 12

22:53

and juxtaposing them with um contemporary portraits that were taken by a professional photographer

22:58

um so i i combine them in in different ways and the the the work

23:05

when you see it like eventually is much brighter and more colorful but you can kind of get

23:10

their lenticular images are really hard to document in photographs it’s actually easiest to document them with animated

23:17

gifs so i use a lot of gifs but yeah anyway

23:23

um that’s probably all i should say at the moment i think i’ve been talking for too long

23:28

and i want to move into cedar tea

23:33

thank you

23:41

[Music] can you hear me oh now i can hear you

23:49

and see you thank you thanks um

23:56

uh spirit little claudia igbo maga

24:01

theater wild cabinets

24:07

[Music] um greetings relatives um all my

24:13

relations um yeah i’m a theater wildcat originally from saturn satellite cremation which is

24:20

about 90 minutes in the northeast of edmonton and um i’m really happy to be a part of

24:26

this panel as one of alberta’s emerging artists so to speak um what you’re seeing is

24:33

one of my works that i’ve compiled numerous videos because of the pandemic

24:40

over the past year i merged into the local drake scene in february 2020 a month before

24:46

the height of the pandemic um so i really only got to perform on stage

24:53

in the past 15 months three times and most of my

24:58

works are on my vimeo page which the public can access um maybe they’ll share the link

25:06

hopefully but um yeah actually one of my more recent works

25:14

is i collaborated with fruit loop and jasper pride it was a really amazing

25:20

experience to be able to go and perform out in the mountains and and bring to you like a virtual

25:26

experience in collaboration with other amazing individuals who do uh work in the community

25:34

so the how i came into the drag scene was traveling across north america when

25:42

i first went to a two-spirit gathering in bosnia manitoba where the two spirit where the word two-spirit was was

25:48

coined um you know i met other people like me who were embracing their femininity and

25:56

it was an outlet for me to express my own

26:02

gender fluidity and really embrace the divine feminine energy and reconnect

26:08

to my ancestral grandmothers i like to stay so that’s been a part of my healing journey which you know has

26:16

helped me to become more of a whole person right um being able to accept all of me

26:22

unapologetically and sharing that with the world i mean um i never would i thought i would be doing

26:30

this but it’s it’s like a dream come true and it

26:36

happened so quickly um i mean the power of prayer and manifestation

26:42

comes through and these works of art like um i’ve been so busy i haven’t even had the

26:47

chance to take a stroll downtown to go check out the sidewalk cinema but this video was featured on the 22nd all

26:55

day and i’m really glad to be able to yeah share that on social media so

27:02

other aspects of myself are you know i have a drake mother her name is spirit wildcat and she hails from

27:09

fort hall idaho she’s from the shoshone bannock tribe and i met her at the 23rd

27:16

montana two spirit gathering which is just in the state below the border of alberta at some sort of flathead lake

27:24

and she took me under her wing you know she guided me and taught me how to

27:31

uh conduct myself you know spreading a good message in the the numbers that i perform um

27:38

really creating that two-spirit visibility within the mainstream um community here and so

27:45

that’s what i came in that’s what i had in mind when i stepped in to the local drag scene um to continue

27:52

raising the visibility that the pioneers and trailblazers had already set before me like for example my relative

27:58

james mccocus and um richard jenkins swarmed winnipeg

28:04

el dorado valley and um really finding my own tribe

28:11

the indigene troupe which there’s actually an event happening this

28:17

saturday the edmonton two spirit society is hosting at the legislature

28:25

are we still good can i get a thumbs up or something just keep talking i see that we’re good

28:32

to go um so further to that i found my own tribe i i found my own

28:39

cucumber here which is my grandmother because i already have a great mother um the legendary ladonna cree who’s been

28:47

in the scene for the past 30 years now and you know we both

28:54

walk the path of recovery or we trail or red road

29:02

which just basically means we live a balanced holistic healthy lifestyle by refraining

29:08

from the use of like illegal substances drugs and alcohol because for time there

29:16

about three or four years ago my life was so wrapped up in living that lifestyle and part of

29:24

my healing journey was you know looking to her for guidance and working together building a bond

29:30

creating relationships with other two-spirit indigenous queer local drag queens

29:36

and so we’re going to be able to celebrate that kind of that family that those relations with each other and uh

29:44

janice everyone will be there this was actually last june almost a year ago and

29:50

i what i do is collaboration with other indigenous local artists like

29:55

makeup artists hair stylist videographers photographers that’s kind of my focus is

30:00

to work with other people of marginalized

30:06

intersectionalities and identities so that we can promote each other’s work and you know

30:12

that’s what i’m about as as a drag queen i come in here with creating my own narrative of how i

30:20

would like to express myself and build my own brand and you know that’s why i have the last

30:27

name t which is for truth so that i’m able to live it um to live my own truth and to be able

30:34

to express that because typically in drake culture you know

30:40

spilling tea can also be perceived as gossiping or having a kiki

30:46

with other drape queens and and i found like in in the in the drake

30:52

scene sometimes there’s a little bit of competitiveness and and i really don’t want to engage in that

30:58

i’d rather you know focus on kindness compassion and continuing to you know

31:05

work lay the house down with the girls in the parks you know when we can so i think that’s a boat

31:13

as much as i can say for now so i’ll pass it back to the moderator

31:19

thank you [Music]

31:27

hi everyone uh thank you so much theater and thank you so much to all the panelists i’m going

31:34

to ask everyone to come back on screen and also big shout out to uh the pride center of

31:40

edmonton um it’s been so great working with you and we have some awesome projects planned

31:46

for the future so thank you so much don it’s been lovely to have you and looking forward to working together

31:51

again um so now we are entering the lovely moderated discussion that i have planned

31:58

um so thanks again to everyone i have a couple questions feel free to bounce around um you know

32:04

respond to each other it’s uh time for you to say what’s on your mind so one of my first questions uh you know

32:11

this is a pride panel how has the queer trans and two-spirit community affected and change your

32:16

artwork does anyone have any thoughts about that

32:24

nazra i feel like you have something to say [Laughter]

32:30

um i think something that i was hearing from

32:35

everyone in some way shape or form i feel is just the relationship to

32:42

fluidity and the permission to transform um ourselves

32:48

and um [Music] what we even view as possible i know for

32:55

me um my art art is my first language

33:01

and it’s the first language of um of so many cultures that have been

33:09

actively destroyed and and i think coming back to just the

33:16

inherent nature of of what it means for me to be

33:23

a black person for what it means for me to be a trans non-binary person um

33:29

[Music] and and for me to be an artist they all have this

33:35

kind of um they all give me the same kind of

33:40

permission uh to choose um

33:48

what space i occupy and what kind of world i want to live in

33:55

and being able to

34:00

choose sometimes feels like the ultimate freedom um for someone for someone who the world

34:08

is constantly saying like no those things don’t go together you can’t be muslim

34:13

and be this and be that like those things don’t the math doesn’t matter and yet i am

34:19

here so my art in the same way like allows like i have a voice to sing like i

34:25

that just that just came with the package so i don’t know why we’re contesting um and then it allows me to then just

34:32

choose what i want to do with that voice um and i’m grateful for art in that way and

34:38

for queerness in that way cool cool yeah that’s amazing i can’t wait to check out your album i haven’t

34:44

listened to it yet but i am gonna get it so soon after this uh cedar

34:49

harley do you have anything to add to that question anything that pops up in your mind

34:55

okay i can go i have a lot to say about that um well as a young emerging artist and

35:02

as a young person in general from the time i came out oh geez when i came out 14 was

35:09

actually really young to come out at the time i know it’s not anymore but um i was

35:15

like completely entranced by the the queer community and like uh really like surrounded myself uh

35:21

purposely with like literally glittery maximalist queerness which was not at all

35:27

um like what i was what what i was like surrounded by at home

35:33

um and so it definitely like highly influenced my aesthetic um and what i see as

35:40

friendly and desirable um and like change the way i think about

35:45

um the audience from my work and what accessibility means um and certainly

35:51

uh like i know volunteering and working in the queer community has taught me

35:57

most of the the practical and critical skills um that i have come to use in my practice

36:05

and in my like any job that i’ve had um outside being a

36:10

visual artist that’s awesome and cedar you mentioned

36:16

the community a little bit in your video so i know this response a little bit but uh do you have anything to add

36:23

can you repeat the question please so except the the question is all about how does the queer trans and two spirit

36:29

community uh influence your artwork oh yeah definitely um

36:35

yeah so i think i’ll use this take this as an opportunity to uplift

36:40

other artists across north america different two-spirit people and in their traditional territories

36:47

so for example there’s the geo neptune soptoma from maine who was actually listed one of top

36:55

50 people under 50 in maine or something like that and then there’s

37:02

also my auntie landa lakes in san francisco who’s been working with their local

37:07

two-spirit group in the bay area there for numerous years and

37:16

of course my great mother in fort hall idaho you know there’s the drake queen she’s

37:22

an indigenous navajo queen in arizona uh shook de la cruz and she she made an

37:28

appearance on the season finale where here hbo series

37:34

and also like jailing time out in vancouver all these new different queens you know

37:39

collaborating breaking together even throughout the pandemic to to serve

37:47

deadly videos um i think also

37:57

it’s it’s not just other artists it’s you know ceremony traditions that highly

38:03

influence where how i would like to present

38:10

for me presenting my indigeneity and affirming that is very important to me

38:17

just because i know that the visibility is important and i think past one

38:26

yeah definitely yeah that’s that’s awesome cedar lots of things to think about and i

38:31

wrote a couple names down i’ll definitely check them out i encourage everyone to check out any of the names that cedar

38:37

mentioned and you know check out cedar at their next performances uh truly show-stopping stuff so we’re gonna

38:44

move on to uh our next question and our next question is uh i feel like alex trebek a little bit

38:51

as an artist what advice do you have for other queer trans and two spirit creatives struggling to navigate making artwork at

38:58

this time and i kind of posed this question as someone i’m an artist myself i really struggled uh and i still

39:05

struggle making art during the pandemic making art in this climate so uh all three of you are creating work

39:11

and creating community do you have any thoughts about this

39:19

i can go i’ll i’ll go um well first of all i like

39:26

i want to say yes i i have been struggling i’ve been struggling hard with um motivation and with isolation i

39:34

think like the same as everyone else has been um and what i what i’ve found

39:42

is that there’s this like struggles that have happened during the pandemic have

39:47

made it like more obvious to tell what’s really important to me and what i still feel passionate about

39:55

and what i just like gave up as soon as as soon as lockdown happened and i didn’t have to

40:01

do it um like could just let go of um so i would say like make art

40:08

that compels you because of the material or because of the subject matter um even if you don’t know why if you

40:14

feel like you need to do it just do it and you’ll like figure it out later i feel like our subconscious

40:20

are really good um at helping us with art and uh that’s like i think the best

40:28

thing um and also i want to say can i say something else i

40:35

want to say i don’t want to hog but um i i feel like our experiences our individual

40:41

experiences are actually really valuable and relevant to other people

40:46

um and just saying um like saying what we are going through and

40:52

what we’re feeling um helps a lot because people come to identify with things

40:58

because of their specificities and like their little weirdnesses rather than

41:04

despite them so like go for it yeah don’t don’t hide

41:09

yourself awesome awesome nasra or

41:14

cedar do you have anything to add i i think i just want a second

41:22

that don’t hide yourself from yourself um yeah i i just

41:29

i was reflecting on um that today and and honestly over the last couple

41:36

months in remembering that my art primarily at first before i had any

41:42

identity as an artist as a six-year-old i knew that colors on paper meant calm

41:50

and those are simple medicines that we get to give ourselves

41:56

um and sometimes capitalism all the time capitalism is trying to

42:02

interrupt that and make you make a buck off something that is just supposed to be

42:07

grounding you um and supposed to be allowing you to metabolize your day and um i think

42:15

recreating a sacredness with you and you um and allowing yourself to be witnessed

42:22

by you like you’re the best audience 10 out of 10. i want me in the front row honey because

42:28

i got the best critique i got the good energy like i you feel me and i think that’s what

42:34

i’ve been trying to harness this this pandemic um in the midst of

42:40

knowing that like all my gigs are cancelled and all my tools are canceled

42:46

my tours are cancelled um i put out this album in the in in a year when i knew that i wasn’t

42:52

going to be able to show it and there’s a grief there and i needed

42:58

my album to actually help me process that grief like i needed the music and i

43:03

needed the poetry to help me move through what happened so it’s for you it’s for you cool

43:12

cool awesome see there anything to add yeah so thank you for sharing those

43:19

amazing words master i think it’s how you speak is so eloquent and

43:25

it really resonates with my spirit [Music] yeah so sorry my squeaky chair

43:36

[Applause] i i just had a brain for can you repeat the question again

43:42

yeah the question is as an as an artist what advice do you have for other queer trans and two-spirit creatives

43:47

struggling to navigate making art during this time i actually seen on instagram one of the

43:54

local queens here who expressed that they were having trouble because you literally have to be

44:00

a whole team by your own self like all of these queens learned how to edit their videos choreograph make set

44:07

designs um kind of really capturing all of those different aspects of

44:13

putting together a really fine production and i found that i could definitely not do

44:18

that on my own and when they expressed that they also did a call-up like you know they were able to reach out

44:24

which takes courage and when when they did that i found it

44:31

when you’re able to be vulnerable and reach out in that way to me that’s true

44:37

strength to be able to acknowledge where you’re at um you know mentally physically spiritually

44:44

emotionally with how the pandemic affects you

44:49

i i think is a way for a chance for a community come together

44:55

and i i know for a fact that i wouldn’t have been able to create any of the productions or videos that

45:01

that you know that whatever like curated content

45:08

without the help of community and reaching out to these different individuals um who are able to help

45:14

like the drop of a dime and and all you really have to do is just like reach out uh a hand or something

45:21

and yeah and to me i think there’s love in that um and then and i

45:29

think it’s also important to to pay attention to not only like

45:34

loving those around you but especially yourself like afford yourself that compassion

45:41

to be able to kind of take a step back if you need to as well because my my my capacity as an artist was

45:48

definitely limited especially trying to make a living like my nine to five you know and it

45:54

really takes a lot of effort and time energy to

46:00

to put your heart and soul into the work that you do and and you know i’ll admit it’s it’s a really

46:06

great side hustle but it’s also like transformative to be

46:11

able to become who you are meant to

46:16

yeah that’s amazing cedar and thanks for mentioning like taking a break and rest you know and

46:22

relying on your community because that’s you know productivity isn’t and making art isn’t

46:28

the most important thing all the time sometimes taking care of yourself and realizing that you know these are

46:33

historical and really challenging times and you know we have to be kind to ourselves so i’m

46:39

just going to remind everyone that if you have any questions please put them in the q a i’m going to ask one more question

46:44

from our from myself and then hopefully we’ll open it up to our lovely audience

46:50

so one more question for me which i’m going to put in the chat very quickly

46:56

[Music] so this is another pandemic question but it’s looking towards the future

47:01

so due to the pandemic a lot of opportunities for artists have disappeared now that we are opening up what do you

47:08

hope for the future for arts and cultural spaces um which this is a really challenging

47:14

question but i’m curious what if anyone has any thoughts about like you know more of a hopeful look

47:25

um well um as as for me um one of the things that i

47:30

appreciate them [Applause] i’m sorry there’s i’m trained um so

47:36

um for me one of the things that i really really appreciate um about the pandemic has been how much

47:43

programming is happening online um like this and like so many other

47:49

things i’ve been to more artists talks during the pandemic than i had been to in years just because um they’re accessible i

47:56

don’t actually have to leave my house and i can watch them kind of on my own

48:02

terms like in a way that is is manageable with my life and that it that means a

48:09

lot um and it means that i even though i’m not physically present um i still feel really connected

48:17

like i know what is happening and like yeah i just i really really like that

48:24

online and i hope that still is possible um for institutions to continue

48:32

yeah definitely i can go next um

48:39

so one thing for me pre pandemic was also booking gigs in muggle form as a model

48:47

national and um levels um so around the same time there was a

48:52

two-spirit call out for model to go do a fashion runway in new york and that

48:57

show just kept getting pushed back from like spring to fall and

49:02

and finally now that things are opening up with the inoculation rollout um i will actually i was chosen as one

49:09

of six out of 100 applications to go and walk with a first nations fashion designer

49:16

in new york so i actually haven’t made that announcement yet and this is i kind of just wanted to

49:22

like book that flight first right so i guess this is that really celebration

49:28

because there’s the indigenous fashion week in toronto and you know drake queens are

49:33

highly influenced by fashion and they highly influence the fashion industry in return so

49:39

i think it’s important to like like androgyny is in it’s the future of fashion and i think being able to show that

49:47

stepping into femininity on the runway and you know that feeling when you get when you’re at the end of

49:53

it i was told by one of my elders to kind of search for that feeling by

49:59

serving your community back home that’s what i try to do is um

50:06

fulfill the void in my heart um that i’ve been

50:13

missing and this is what i’ve been um sorry i was just getting a little

50:20

emotional there and i lost my train of thought however

50:27

i think in in arts and culture and with a lot of opportunities lost

50:33

due to the pandemic um i there there is a lot to look forward into in the future

50:40

um and then and i can’t wait to keep sharing it with to the world

50:46

yeah definitely see you nasa well we can’t wait or we can’t wait

50:56

congratulations your grandma’s been screaming coco’s everywhere yes wow um

51:03

it’s so exciting and i yes i want to uplift all of that i want

51:10

to uplift also harley the accessibility it’s the accessibility for me honey um

51:15

it is because i think the pandemic has just shown so all the gaps every gap that exists

51:23

that keeps people from being with each other and keeps people from um being able to access what is

51:29

rightfully theirs which is art and art and creative experience and community um i’m really excited to um

51:36

see how we um all the lines start to get blurred between um what we need as a society

51:46

and what we need as a creative community because people not come into the show if

51:51

they’re not housed if they’re not fed if they’re not safe um and the pandemic has really

51:58

um aggravated those those gaps and those those um those spaces where people are

52:05

just continuously following through and the artistic space is no different and

52:10

i think it is our divine responsibility and gift to

52:17

be able to be tapped into people’s hearts in the ways that we get to be as

52:22

creative and hopefully we can start to

52:27

advocate for each other in ways that don’t just serve our clout or serve our

52:35

ego as artists which is a way it’s a it’s a path you can take

52:40

you can take pretty easy they give you a stage and some lights um and it’s very easy to forget why you

52:46

have the gift that you have like you’re saying cedar that it is for um the balance of everybody and

52:54

i’m really excited for artists to be empowered in those ways to feel like we have the

52:59

power to make structural change and make it last make it stick

53:06

because i think this time has also shown how much people rely on art to get through the day to get through

53:13

the day netflix you’re welcome

53:21

definitely that’s so true and thank you so much for saying that yeah it’s art art is so important it gets you

53:27

through the day i’m just gonna check the uh the q a i don’t have anything yet

53:32

i’m gonna give it one more second um but uh this has just been a lovely chat

53:40

and you know we have about a couple more minutes i don’t think there’s going to be a question from the audience i think they were just so

53:46

uh invested in this talk um but my last question is is this like

53:52

what we know cedar you already mentioned this like what’s next you’re going to new york going to be on the catwalk but

53:57

uh just quickly what’s next for everyone else or cedar if you have other things that you’re working on

54:03

uh just or you know your social media handles anything that you want people to know about to connect to you

54:09

and your work

54:16

um i’ll go now oh okay um uh for me well i’m harley.mormon on

54:22

i think most social media um if if you google that you’ll be able to

54:28

find me like there’s not very many um uh i am so um working on

54:33

uh let’s do the time warp again uh is still very much in progress like i’m

54:38

actively uh working on it uh and that is that’s like taking up

54:46

a lot of my time uh in the fall um and i’m riding my bike a lot or my

54:53

trike because it’s a tricycle um around lethbridge which is really important to for my mental health um

55:01

uh yeah that is mostly what i’m working on and i’m supposed to be finishing uh my phd

55:07

tattoo suppose yeah hopefully it happens yeah whatever

55:17

oh i love that i love that um i love that i um

55:25

i will be uh inshallah allah who knows it maybe it’ll be on a stage maybe it

55:31

won’t be but next um march i will be presenting

55:36

um dna play which now is um it was first uh

55:43

shown at the chinook festival this year um 21. as a eight-minute

55:49

video film of me just talking talking talking and um exploring

55:56

movement and ritual and uh my relations um through the body and so i’m really excited to be

56:03

sharing movement um and film in a new way uh next year so you can look out for

56:10

that um you can also look out on my website i’m actually going to be starting

56:15

working with people um working with artists who are trying to um develop a spiritual

56:22

practice that works for them and working with spiritual practitioners to develop creative practices

56:28

that work for them um book me one on one we could talk talk um and that’s how that’s a new lane very

56:35

new lane for me something i’ve been doing for friends and family for a really long time but i’m now ready to take to the masses

56:41

so if you want to talk about your feelings with me um you can do that and all of that

56:47

information is on my website nasa.ca perfect

56:53

cedar take it away speaking of websites i actually just did a hard launch this

56:59

past national indigenous people’s day you can find me at cedarboy.ca which

57:04

takes me and michael farmer’s model and then as drake queen of crt and just combining really both

57:10

aspects of who i am and collaborating with other local indigenous artists and so that’s what i hope to do is you

57:16

know apply for grads to continue to be able to do that by supporting other artists you know um

57:21

by purchasing their designs and then potentially you know doing a feature show in um high fashion

57:29

indigenous designs next year perhaps that’s amazing we did end up having a last-minute

57:35

question from facebook so there’s just one more quick question and the question is any good resources for

57:42

new immigrant queer artists to edmonton that you want to shout out

57:49

maybe the pride center

57:56

well um i would say yes like one of the things that we’ve been trying to do recently

58:03

um and i’ll have to check the links on this is to have qut by poc

58:09

artists let us know about them um their practice their

58:16

their contact information because we do get often get requests through the pride

58:22

center for people looking for for talent and we’re we’re more than willing to

58:29

share that information with consent and to be a conduit between artists and community to

58:37

yeah just to to help the artists get some traction and get some work and get some coins

58:44

yeah coins are so important they really aren’t

58:49

definitely does anyone else have anything to add i’m like it’s terrible because i’m

58:55

literally like um it’s all the instagram handles like they’re just they’re flying through my

59:01

head right now um but i know that um it depends on i guess what what kind of art but

59:08

there’s there’s so much i think going through the pride center is gonna be uh a network to feed you out you could also

59:16

um if you feel comfortable whoever that was uh hit me up on instagram and i can send you some links okay

59:24

very cool thanks so much nasra that’s awesome so i guess that that wraps up our time i

59:30

have to say another huge heartfelt thank you to everyone um this is truly fantastic

59:35

and such it’s the highlight of my pride month so thank you so much um and one thing

59:41

i’ll just add is we have a little survey i think it will pop up in the chat or maybe it will come via zoom but if you like

59:48

this program let us know if you want us to improve things let us know we’re open to feedback so

59:54

uh big thank you to everyone and we’ll say farewell and you know come to the aga we’re open

1:00:00

nowadays we’re open thursday to sunday uh thursday we’re open 11 until

1:00:05

seven and the rest of the days we’re open 11 until five uh sidewalk cinema with nasra and cedar

1:00:11

teas on from 10 a.m to 10 p.m every day and you can check that out on the side of the

1:00:16

building uh thank you again uh cheers happy pride happy birthday happy birthday bye

1:00:23

happy pride

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