CANCELLED: Queer Frontiers Series Presents: James Knott – The Apocalypse In Your Bedroom
March 12, 2020: LOMAA and James Knott have decided to cancel the event planned for March 18, 2020 in light of the current coronavirus pandemic. We apologize for having to do this, but we feel that it is in everyone’s best interest to avoid public gatherings at this time. We will reschedule the event and the new date will be posted here once it has been set.
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LOMAA’s Queer Frontiers is excited to kick off this series with James Knott’s performance “The Apocalypse In Your Bedroom.” Knott is a Toronto-based multidisciplinary artist whose emotive works touch on queer aesthetics, identity, and performance. Knott will be giving a talk about their practice and answering questions following the performance. This event is presented in partnership with Artlab Gallery.
Wednesday March 18, 2020
Artlab Gallery – John Labatt Visual Arts Centre, Western University
6:00-7:00pm – Performance
7:00-8:00pm – Artist Talk
Accessibility note: we are excited to share this location is fully accessible!
The Apocalypse In Your Bedroom Tour:
This award-winning self-mythologized facade of a rock show incorporates life-scale video projection, original music, gestural choreography, and on-the-go stage props to coalesce into a black-box style theatrical spectacle meets dirty diary exploring the elusive and dichotomous nature of queer identity. With a reliance on the grimy mustard-coloured lights and sequins of 70s glam rock aesthetics, the protagonist travels the mental collapse of a dark night of the soul, searching for purpose in a world that doesn’t care to be purposeful. Themes include rejection, broken promises, wishes on a star, deals with the devil, and packing up to leave with no intention of return; segueing into old photo albums, crying and stitching the tears to your face, and fading into an old morning’s coffee at the dawn of dandelion’s spring. Blazers and boxers are the perfect attire to watch the gaping hole in the sky swallow everything in its path, leaving behind the ghost of glitter’s past.
James Knott is an emerging, Toronto-based artist, having received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Integrated Media from OCAD University. Their performance-based practice combines theatre, video, and audio art to create immersive and emotionally resonant experiences for the viewer. Explored themes include: paradoxical and queer identity, inner dialogue, mental illness, and camp theatrics. A recent alumni of The Roundtable Residency, they’ve exhibited/performed at Xpace Cultural Centre, Feminist Art Conference, The Artist Project Contemporary Art Fair, the 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, the Art Gallery of Hamilton, and the AGO’s First Thursdays.
LOMAA’s Queer Frontiers series critically reflects on Canada’s 50th anniversary celebration of the purported “decriminalization” of homosexuality in the country. Serving as a counter to the state revelries, LOMAA will host 8 artists, artist duos, or curators who have established practices post-legislation and remain on the frontiers of Canadian queer media. This project centres queer narratives and praxis as a means to interrogate historical representation and continue fortifying queer futures within this country.
For more background information please visit: https://anti-69.ca/
Located in John Labatt Visual Arts Centre at Western University, the Artlab Gallery is a vital part of the Department of Visual Arts. The Gallery is focused on projects that involve and respond to social and cultural issues, primarily supporting the research and practice of students and faculty. Each year approximately 14 projects and events are presented, exploring conceptual and experimental production that includes a wide range of mediums.
https://www.uwo.ca/visarts/artlab/
LOMAA would like to thank Canada Council for the Arts and Ontario Arts Council for their support of this program, as well as London Arts Council for its continued backing.