ART GALLERY OF REGINA

The Drag Explosion: Linda Simpson

 

Inspired by her ongoing slide show presentation, The Drag Explosion, Linda Simpson’s photo documentation - shown here at the AGR for the first time as an art exhibition — is a tribute to the drag scene in New York in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and in turn, to the evolution of queerness in North America. Her images capture queer creatives carving out an indelible presence through performativity in the context of drag, performance art, film, music and more — all from the perspective of her analog camera. Artists exploring, questioning, and fucking with expectations were her subjects; gender, race, art, and queerness became her playground.

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Speaking of playgrounds, it was during this same period that I travelled to, connected with, and was inspired by MIX NYC as I developed the long-running Queer City Cinema (QCC) Festival in Regina. An intimate, brash and beautiful queer experimental film festival experience run by and made for queer artists and audiences seeking something much different than the statusqueer, MIX NYC was not unlike the highly textured NYC drag scene depicted in Linda's photographs. East Village NYC nurtured a queer artistic movement of play, risk, experimentation, and discovery, and MIX was one of the places it came into focus and to life.

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It just so happens — one of the reasons I conceived of this exhibition — that MIX was a festival, for obvious reasons, that attracted Linda and her contemporaries. I would see her festival after festival, sometimes as a host for one of MIX’s events or as an audience member attending and taking in all the glorious and strange queer experimentality of it all. I don’t recall a camera in tow, but I noted her pleasant and poised presence; it was always a delight to see her amongst all the other characters and comrades in the colourful MIX landscape.

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It was MIX that served as the most significant influence on and inspiration for the first iteration of QCC in 1996. Specifically, MIX NYC informed QCC's overall point of view and position in the world of queer film festival viewing. MIX and the NYC drag scene in the '90s were distinct, daring, and delightfully disruptive; QCC wanted to be that, to offer that, in one form or another, for Regina.

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Twenty-five years and still going, Queer City Cinema will hold several events over the next few years that pay tribute to its origins and early influences. Consequently, (and directly and indirectly) Linda’s New York images are part of QCC’s experience and the impact ‘90s NYC had in forming and nurturing a uniquely queer project in and for Saskatchewan.

 

Gary Varro

Executive and Artistic Director,

Queer City Cinema and Performatorium

queercitycinema.ca