Radical Practices, Cooption, and Bursts of Social Change

Creative and critical practices in Canada’s lesbian and gay liberation efforts have at times depended upon institutional and public funding, which may value ideas that are sometimes at odds with their efforts, to advance their activist agendas. For example, after many years of providing funding, in 1977 conservative MPs debated in the House of Commons why the Canada Council should fund gay poet, painter, and activist bill bissett’s pornographic work. However, communal efforts by artists and activists were developed to support bissett and to support him economically. Comparatively, in 2016, Black Lives Matter protests at the Toronto and Vancouver Pride Parades called for more intersectional efforts that addressed police violence and protested the involvement of the local police departments in the cities’ respective parades. While efforts, concerns and historical conditions have changed over the past 40 years, the tension between subjects and institutions remains a pertinent issue worth further pursuing.

This conversation seeks to interrogate how these types of relationships and the tensions that they encapsulate continue to foster productive and important moments of dissonance within ongoing liberation efforts. Moreover, it will ask, how do social justice artists and researchers, such as you, working with and within institutions critically challenge our relationships with these institutions to create bursts of social change?