(Title of the Thesis)*

COMFORT/DISCOMFORT: ALLYSON MITCHELL’S QUEER RE-CRAFTING OF THE HOME, THE MUSEUM AND THE NATION by Julie Hollenbach A thesis submitted to the Department of Art In conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada (January, 2013) Copyright © Julie Hollenbach, 2013 Abstract Through an exploration of Toronto-based artist Allyson Mitchell’s craft-art, this thesis investigates the complexities surrounding the functions and roles of public and private spaces; particularly the home and the fine art museum within Canadian society. I propose a reading of Mitchell’s art practice, activism, scholarship, and curatorial activities that focuses on a queering of both private domestic space and public social space through a conflation of the two. Mitchell’s textile installations make intimate and cozy the otherwise impersonal space of the public art museum, while Mitchell queers the heteronormative space of the family home by turning it into a public art institution, an archive and a classroom. Mitchell’s bright textile enclosures, Hungry Purse: The Vagina Dentata in Late Capitalism and Menstrual Hut, Sweet Menstrual Hut, for example, visibly disrupt the sanitized and impersonal space of the art museum, disrupting the dominant ideological framework that privileges normative assumptions of sexuality and sexual identity, and exclusionary hierarchies of class, able-bodiedness and access. While Mitchell’s theatrical textile installation, Ladies Sasquatch, has predominantly been theorized as a queer critique of the myths of femininity, gender, sexuality, and the detrimental treatment of the female body within popular media; I present a reading of Ladies Sasquatch as a radical decolonizing spectacle that has the potential to interrupt larger nationalistic and colonial narratives reproduced by museums. Through these powerful interventions in public and private space, I suggest that Mitchell’s crafty installations offer playful acts of resistance that create counter narratives which function to decolonize our physical, psychic and emotional space, while also creating new imaginings that undermine the status quo. ii Acknowledgements I would first like to acknowledge and thank Allyson Mitchell for taking time to speak with me and share her invaluable thoughts and feelings about her artworks and her art practice. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit her home; to see her studio space and the Feminist Art Gallery space, first hand. This aspect of my research has been an inspiring pleasure. I would also like to gratefully acknowledge the support of my advisor, Janice Helland, whose patience, encouragement and insight have guided me through this process. I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to continue to work with Professor Helland on my doctoral degree, benefitting not only from her knowledge and expertise, but also from her tremendous kindness. I am indebted to the faculty at Queen’s University, all of whom have been so generous with their time and insight. I would especially like to thank Lynda Jessup, Scott Morgensen, Katherine Romba, Clive Robertson, and Una D’Elia. Thanks are also due to numerous individuals who have graciously helped me through my research: Jocelyn Purdie at the Union Gallery, Jan Allen at the Agnes Etherington Arts Centre, Erin Wall at the Library and Archive of the Art Gallery of Ontario, and Lindsey at the Textile Museum of Canada’s Library. I would also like to thank Alena Buis, Sarah Smith, and Julia Skelly for their mentorship. The process of writing this thesis has been entwined in a life made vibrant and down- right quirky by my friends and colleagues. In particular: Elizabeth Diggon, Casey Lee, Kristina Thornton, and Meaghan Whitehead. Special thanks to Robin McDonald for beautiful days spent reading in coffee shops, writing in parks, and talking passionately about ideas and art. I am also deeply grateful to the amazing women of the Kingston Derby Girls for their friendship, and for welcoming me into a wonderful, empowering community. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their love and support. My brother Mark, who can always be depended on, my sister-in-law Emily for being my confidante, my aunt Doris iii for instilling in me a hungry passion for beauty, and especially my mother, Irene, who is in so many ways my inspiration. iv Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... iii Chapter 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Literature Review......................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 2 Exploring the House, Exploding the Home, Experiencing a Practice ........................... 18 Chapter 3 The White Cube in Stitches: Hungry Purse and Menstrual Hut, Sweet Menstrual Hut 59 The White Cube ......................................................................................................................... 60 Hungry Purse: The Vagina Dentata in Late Capitalism ............................................................. 66 Menstrual Hut, Sweet Menstrual Hut ........................................................................................ 75 Chapter 4 Ladies Sasquatch: Decolonizing Our Imaginations ...................................................... 97 Ladies Sasquatch ........................................................................................................................ 99 Reimagining Space .................................................................................................................. 103 Queer Interventions in Space ................................................................................................... 111 Decolonizing Rituals and Performing New Imaginings .......................................................... 116 Chapter 5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 136 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................ 140 v List of Figures Figure 2.1 A Girl’s Journey to the Well of Forbidden Knowledge, Allyson Mitchell, Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010. ............................................................................................................................ 49 Figure 2.2 Detail: Alison Bechdel, The Essential Dykes To Watch Out For. ............................... 50 Figure 2.3 Drawing of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s bookshelf on the cover of GLQ, Allyson Mitchell. ......................................................................................................................................... 51 Figure 2.4 Drawing of Ladies Sasquatch installation, Deirdre Logue. .......................................... 52 Figure 2.5 Promotional posters for A Girl’s Journey to the Well of Forbidden Knowledge exhibited at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2010.. ........................................................................... 53 Figure 2.6 CAN’T/WON’T, Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue, 2012. ...................................... 54 Figure 2.7 Two Christmas elf figures from the Christmas Scares Me installation that was exhibited at the Niagara Artists Centre in January, 2012............................................................... 55 Figure 2.8 Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue’s studio space. ................................................... 56 Figure 2.9 Detail of Allyson Mitchell’s studio space. ................................................................... 57 Figure 2.10 Promotional posters for JD’s Lesbian Utopia, exhibited at the Deitch Projects Gallery in December of 2005. ..................................................................................................................... 58 Figure 3.1 Your body is a battleground, Barbara Kruger, 1989. ................................................... 86 Figure 3.2 WombRoom, Faith Wilding. ......................................................................................... 87 Figure 3.3 Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? The Guerilla Girls, Billboard, 1989. ............................................................................................................................. 88 Figure 3.4 Museum Highlights: A Gallery Talk, Andrea Fraser, Performance, 1989. ................... 89 Figure 3.5 Detail: Hungry Purse: The Vagina Dentata in Late Capitalism, Allyson Mitchell, Textile Museum of Canada, 2007. ................................................................................................. 90 Figure 3.6 Hungry Purse: The Vagina Dentata in Late Capitalism, Allyson Mitchell, Textile Museum of Canada, 2007. ............................................................................................................. 91 vi Figure 3.7 Detail: Hungry Purse: The Vagina Dentata in Late Capitalism, Allyson Mitchell, Textile Museum of Canada, 2007. ................................................................................................. 92 Figure 3.8 More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid, 1987 and Wages of Sin, 1987, Mike Kelley. ...........................................................................................................................................

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