Artist
Tess Martens

Image: © Tess Martens, Ashes to Ashes, Pi*llOry part four, 2020. Photo by Tina Bararian.

Canada

Martens completed her Masters of Fine Art at the University of Waterloo in 2018. She is also part of the programming committee for CAFKA (Contemporary Art Forum of Kitchener & Area) and has interviewed artists for arts and culture blog, www.culturefancier.com. She has participated in performance art residencies and performed internationally. In her art practice, personal experiences are re-contextualized through performances. These performances draw from memories that are simultaneously nostalgic, shameful and based in fear. There is an attempt to fight off shame and guilt associated with exposing oneself in her performances. Humour is often used to invite and engage the viewer.

Performance
Pi*llOry Part 3 and Part 4, curated by Holly Timpener

ARTISTS
Amber Helene Müller St. Thomas
[ field ] (Brian Smith & Coman Poon)
Holly Timpener
Johannes Zits
lo bil
Madeleine Lychek
Nicole Lynn Deschaine
Randa Reda
Sadie Berlin
Sheri Osden Nault
Simla Civelek
Tess Martens

Curated by Holly Timpener

Pi*llOry is an event for Queer, BIPOC and Feminist performers to show case their work, focusing on trauma. Pi*llOrists are examining how we personally and politically dismantle heteronormative hegemony and engage in healing that puts an end to the repetition of communal trauma. Pi*llOry’s performers are liberating queer bodies as a primary agency that can harness the transformative power of presence, space, politics, shame and (dis)/ability while refracting their infinite incarnations. Pi*llOry’s artists renounce the binary and traditional gender roles, they not only create new ones for themselves, but give space for others to create their own as well. Through oral, visual and visceral mediums, Pi*llOry explores the depths of fragmented gender/queer identity, pushing beyond labels and classifications. On the edge of complete uncertainty, with only the already structural, limited and bound ways of description and discrimination of queerness, Pi*llOrists arm themselves with the unknown to disrupt inherited historical trauma invoking a lasting communal cultural healing.

Pi*llOry would like to thank FADO for their sponsorship and support of Pi*llOry Part 3 and 4.

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Read Holly Timpener’s publication on the full Pi*llOry series, below!
Publication includes thesis dissertation, plus interviews with artists from the series:

Featuring interviews with Aisha Lesley Bentham, Amber Helene Müller St. Thomas, B Wijshijer, Brian Smith, Claudia Edwards, Coman Poon, David Frankovich, Enok Ripley, Holly Timpener, Johannes Zits, Leena Raudvee, lo bil, lwrds, Madeleine Lychek, Matthew Moir, Nicole Nigro, Racquel Rowe, Raki Malhotra, Randa Reda, Sadie Berlin, Santiago Tamayo Soler, Sheri Osden Nault, Simla Civelek, Sophie Traub, Speranza Spir and Tess Martens.

Performance Yellow

This fragrance opens us to the question, has the show started? It's winter, the theatre is colder than the street and the room is filled with people and all their winter smells: wet faux leather, down, too much shampoo, and beer breath. The atmosphere is a trickster. Am I late, am I early?

Top Notes

yellow mandarin, mimosa

Middle Notes

honey, chamomile, salt

Base Notes

narcissus, guaiac wood, piss, beer