blogcutter (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blogcutter) wrote2015-03-27 03:00 pm
blogcutter) wrote2015-03-27 03:00 pm
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Repent, all ye sinners! Hair shirts and gay sweaters
I quite like participative and collaborative art projects, especially when they make nice progressive statements. So I was intrigued when I read about the "gay sweater", made of human hair - the hair of hundreds of LGBTQ Canadians - and adorned with rainbow buttons. The sweater is the brainchild of Jeremy Dias, Amelia Lyon and Brenna MacDonald of the Canadian Centre of Gender and Diversity (formerly Jer's Vision), and is to be officially unveiled at a tenth anniversary Day of Pink gala on April 8.
Now this Centre - and these people - have done a lot to address the problems of homophobia, transphobia and bullying in the schools and beyond. The great thing about art (and I think this would probably apply to ALL the arts) is that it can appeal to us - or, for that matter, disgust us - on many different levels. Good art, to me at least, is laden, perhaps sometimes unconsciously, with myriad connotations and overtones. But the greatest strength of art may also be its greatest weakness. If you want to denote a clear and unambiguous message like "Just say no" or "Bullying is never OK", then art is a pretty blunt instrument.
The connotations of a hair shirt (or if you want to, well, split hairs, hair sweater) are to me particularly unfortunate for a project of this nature, suggesting penitence and asceticism. Do these people want to be "cured" of a pathological sexual orientation or gender identity, through electric shock, aversion therapy, "supportive" counselling or whatever? I rather think not! It almost seems to convey the opposite message to gay pride.
Perhaps the problem is that today's generation of young adults, at least those who are not from devout families and have gone through the secularized public school system, are not familiar with the Bible or indeed with any major religious text, be it Islamic or Aslanic - sorry, I still have Narnia on the brain. They haven't studied them even in the context of our literary, historical or overall cultural heritage.
But taken as a whole, the younger generations tend to be far more accepting of gender variance and diverse sexual preferences than was our generation - or our parents' or grandparents' generation. If this project only reaches out to kids and young adults, it is to a great extent preaching to the converted (well, perhaps unconverted is more to the point here). If they want to reach out to old fogeys like us, then they need to speak to us using the lingo and imagery that old fogeys can understand - at an emotional as well as an intellectual level.
Or maybe I'm the one who is missing the point. Maybe they deliberately appropriated the motif of the hair shirt, and transformed it into a gay sweater of many colours by weaving it of "gay" hair and adorning it with rainbow-patterned buttons?
I don't know. But I would welcome the opportunity to go and view this artistic creation some time!
Now this Centre - and these people - have done a lot to address the problems of homophobia, transphobia and bullying in the schools and beyond. The great thing about art (and I think this would probably apply to ALL the arts) is that it can appeal to us - or, for that matter, disgust us - on many different levels. Good art, to me at least, is laden, perhaps sometimes unconsciously, with myriad connotations and overtones. But the greatest strength of art may also be its greatest weakness. If you want to denote a clear and unambiguous message like "Just say no" or "Bullying is never OK", then art is a pretty blunt instrument.
The connotations of a hair shirt (or if you want to, well, split hairs, hair sweater) are to me particularly unfortunate for a project of this nature, suggesting penitence and asceticism. Do these people want to be "cured" of a pathological sexual orientation or gender identity, through electric shock, aversion therapy, "supportive" counselling or whatever? I rather think not! It almost seems to convey the opposite message to gay pride.
Perhaps the problem is that today's generation of young adults, at least those who are not from devout families and have gone through the secularized public school system, are not familiar with the Bible or indeed with any major religious text, be it Islamic or Aslanic - sorry, I still have Narnia on the brain. They haven't studied them even in the context of our literary, historical or overall cultural heritage.
But taken as a whole, the younger generations tend to be far more accepting of gender variance and diverse sexual preferences than was our generation - or our parents' or grandparents' generation. If this project only reaches out to kids and young adults, it is to a great extent preaching to the converted (well, perhaps unconverted is more to the point here). If they want to reach out to old fogeys like us, then they need to speak to us using the lingo and imagery that old fogeys can understand - at an emotional as well as an intellectual level.
Or maybe I'm the one who is missing the point. Maybe they deliberately appropriated the motif of the hair shirt, and transformed it into a gay sweater of many colours by weaving it of "gay" hair and adorning it with rainbow-patterned buttons?
I don't know. But I would welcome the opportunity to go and view this artistic creation some time!