Part Two: Tender Containers and Building Capacity for 2STNBGN Artists in Saskatchewan
Introduction
The essay you are reading is two of a three-part series about my experience living and working as a trans[1] artist and arts professional in Saskatchewan and across Canada. In part one of the series, I give a brief overview of the current state of trans art and artists in Saskatchewan and identify some of the challenges faced by these cultural workers as they struggle to make ends meet and be taken seriously by their cisgender colleagues. In part two, which you are currently reading, I offer what I see as a necessary step towards solving these problems by thinking through some of the trans spaces and methodologies I’ve encountered in my ten-plus years of being out and working/making work. In part three, I reflect on my recent performance, I Don’t Want to See or Be Seen by Cis People, which debuted at Queer City Cinema/Performatorium in Regina. This performance was, in part, a testing ground for my own ideas and methodology around interiority, and it serves as another example of how trans joy and futurity can be fostered through creating a closed space.
This series of essays is, largely, grounded in my own personal experience. If it doesn’t resonate with you, consider how your positionality might differ from mine, and if you’re cisgender (not trans), remember that believing trans people’s experiences is a vital first step in building solidarity with the community. Such solidarity building is revolutionarily necessary as all of our struggles are intertwined. Nobody is truly free until we all are.
Tender Container
Tender Container is an ad hoc group of (mostly) trans artists working on performance and literary projects, steered by Artistic Producer Mx. Sly. As a collective, Tender Container creates both its own original works as well as providing financial and developmental support to other artists’ projects. Tender Container’s philosophy is about “using what you have at your disposal to build something strong and flexible enough to contain one’s truth… as nameable or unnamable as that truth may be.” As a trans person who is more concerned with challenging the rigid gender norms at play on both sides of the cis/trans binary than simply passing as any kind of legible gender identity, I’ve often felt that the entirety of my truth is too much to be contained or explained. The kind of work that Tender Container seeks to create and support is highly specific in subject matter: “work that seeks to speak to one, individual experience at a time.” This allows for the creation of work that is non-totalizing and non-appropriative, that gestures at universality through specificity.
I became involved with Tender Container when I applied to an open call for their peer-mentorship platform for gender diverse performers, Do Trans People Dream of Non-binary Sheep?. What intrigued me about this mentorship/residency opportunity was the fact that it was being facilitated by and for trans artists. This was the first time I’d encountered a T4T (trans for trans) approach in the arts and I was compelled to apply by the simple fact that, at the very least, I would actually be judged by a group of my peers. For trans artists applying for funding, residencies, and other opportunities this simply isn’t always the case as many selection committees and juries are largely made up of cisgender, white men and women who don’t have the cultural competency to fully understand trans work. Furthermore, the application process itself was unique. Instead of applying to a committee or jury who would then decide who would form the cohort, we were asked to apply directly to the anchor artist we wished to work with. I drafted a letter to Mx. Sly and, much to my surprise, they became my anchor mentor for the project. I would spend a month meeting with them one on one as well as with the rest of the cohort via Zoom and, a year later due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, two weeks in person at The Grand in Calgary developing new work.
Tender Container and its by and for ethos has had a profound impact on my practice. I became interested in how I could use interiority as a way to foster trans joy and futurity through my creative work and began developing a new performance, I Don’t Want to See or Be Seen by Cis People, which I will discuss further in part three of this essay series. It was also around this time that I became involved in a new project first conceived by jake moore at the University of Saskatchewan Art Galleries and Collection called CAPACITOR. In a lot of ways, Do Trans People Dream of Non-binary Sheep? was a sort of blueprint for my contributions to the CAPACITOR project in my role as the projects Art Auntie.
CAPACITOR
The CAPACITOR project was born out of a desire to address a harm that had been inflicted upon the trans community in Saskatchewan. In 2020, The Kenderdine Art Gallery at the University of Saskatchewan hosted an exhibition of portraits of trans people shot by cis photographer, Blake Little. Not only do Little’s portraits present a very voyeuristic view of transness and trans bodies, he describes them as “alluring”, but during the process of creating them, Little enacted transphobic violence upon his subjects. Many of the models from the shoots held in Regina and Saskatoon reported being misgendered by Little and forced to conform to his ideas of what a trans person is and how their body should look, despite Little’s claim to work collaboratively with his subjects. In showing these images in a largely cis context, Little enacts violence upon the wider trans community by perpetuating harmful stereotypes about trans people and their bodies. The exhibition had already been approved prior to jake moore taking on the role of director of the University of Saskatchewan Art Galleries and Collection, yet she felt strongly about taking responsibility as an institution and sought to engage the trans community in a meaningful and reparative way.
The first iteration of CAPACITOR grew into an expansive and ambitious project. Through the brainstorming and grant writing process, what started out as an online programming channel for trans artists slowly shapeshifted into a six month low productivity residency and universal basic income pilot program overseen by an advisory committee of five more established Two-Spirit, trans, non-binary, and gender nonconforming (2STNBGN), Saskatchewan-based artists and arts professionals, and facilitated by an Art Auntie. In the end, we were able to offer four Saskatchewan-based, 2STNBGN artists a $2000/month guaranteed income, one-on-one mentorship with the Art Auntie, workshops, as well as a health spending account. We continue to believe that when given time, support, and access to a livable wage, artists will be productive. The four CAPACITOR artists demonstrated this. We also continue to question the metrics that define productivity as fraught and rooted in a capitalist, colonial and ableist worldview – one that is not ethically sound. Whether productive during the residency period or not, all of the four CAPACITOR artists continue to produce work, in part, due to this period of stability CAPACITOR was able to provide.
While the CAPACITOR project was, for the most part, successful, it was not without its challenges and missteps. Many of these amount to the ways in which whiteness was baked into the project. In large part because of a looming grant deadline combined with results being announced very close to the project start date, a sense of urgency permeated the early stages of the project up until the advisory committee had selected the CAPACITOR artists and we were able to announce the selection to the public. This brought a certain energy to the conversation when BIPOC artists and arts professionals were asked to join the advisory committee and support the grant application, notably after most of the initial dreaming had been done. Furthermore, had the advisory committee had more time to review applications, and if there had been more than one person on the committee with substantial Indigenous cultural competencies, it may have been easier to spot applicants being dishonest about their cultural heritage.
Some of these challenges ultimately strengthened the project. Part of what made the CAPACITOR project a success was its ability to flex the rigid boundaries of the institution. This was, in no small part, due to jake moore’s willingness to take on this labour as director of the galleries and CAPACITOR’s representative to the university. When the project’s needs began to push against university policy, moore was able to advocate for change. When we were struggling to find a way to provide health insurance to the CAPACITOR cohort, a recommendation that was made by the advisory council to help support the artists during their six months as artists-in-residence and beyond, we advocated for the creation of a health spending account that would be provided to each CAPACITOR artist on a monthly basis. Realizing that supporting the health and wellbeing of trans artists goes beyond simply providing health insurance, these funds were made accessible to each artist without reporting requirements such as submitting receipts. Each artist could then use this money to pay for health insurance if they desired, but they could also purchase medication, medical supplies, or really anything else that could contribute to their health and wellbeing.
Almost T4T
For me, the strength of projects like Tender Container and CAPACITOR lie in their by and for ethos. While neither project is strictly T4T – Tender Container does sometimes work with cis queer artists and CAPACITOR was to some degree overseen by jake moore – both structures sought to empower trans people as the primary decision makers and position trans ways of knowing and being as something valuable and necessary. Rather than try to fit trans artists into an already existing framework, these projects endeavour to build something new and responsive to trans people’s needs and desires.
As I’ve alluded to earlier in this essay, my involvement in Tender Container and CAPACITOR became the impetus for a shift in my art practice. I’ve since become invested in developing a T4T creative methodology, a way to use interiority as a way of fostering trans joy and futurity in my creative work. In the third and final essay in this series I’ll give some insight into this developing way of creating work by thinking through my most recent performance, I Don’t Want to See or Be Seen by Cis People. Comprised of two events, a performance/T4T party that is only open to the 2STNBGN community, and an accompanying workshop for cisgender people about exploring the limits of their embodied gender, this performance aims to create an alternative space for expression outside of cis-hetero norms/open up a space for non-cis, non-heteronormative expressions of desire and self.
[1] By trans I mean that, when I was born, everyone said I was a boy. I was never able to live up to the expectations of this particular gender role and I was punished for it from a very young age. In my twenties I began transitioning and was pushed, by doctors and community, to be femme and identify as a woman. Indeed, this was the only way I could access the healthcare I so desperately needed. In my early thirties I began presenting more masculinely. I still describe myself as a woman, largely for political reasons and as a way to push back against rigid gender norms. I don’t really care what people think of me. My pronouns are she/they/or he in the context of being a butch dyke.
[1] By trans I mean that, when I was born, everyone said I was a boy. I was never able to live up to the expectations of this particular gender role and I was punished for it from a very young age. In my twenties I began transitioning and was pushed, by doctors and community, to be femme and identify as a woman. Indeed, this was the only way I could access the healthcare I so desperately needed. In my early thirties I began presenting more masculinely. I still describe myself as a woman, largely for political reasons and as a way to push back against rigid gender norms. I don’t really care what people think of me. My pronouns are she/they/or he in the context of being a butch dyke.
Left: Jaye Kovach, Kendell (2022), 35mm film (Psychedelic Blues #5), taken at Do Trans People Dream of Nonbinary Sheep?, Tender Container’s peer-mentorship platform.
Middle: Jaye Kovach, Jove (2022), 35mm film (Psychedelic Blues #5), taken at Do Trans People Dream of Nonbinary Sheep?, Tender Container’s peer-mentorship platform.
Right: Jaye Kovach, Tanya/Tamás (2022), 35mm film (Psychedelic Blues #5), taken at Do Trans People Dream of Nonbinary Sheep?, Tender Container’s peer-mentorship platform.
Part One: On the State of Trans Artists and Art in Saskatchewan
