“Human beings, as a rule, are pack animals. We seek the comfort and safety found in the company of commonality, the relief at being recognized for who and what we are.”
- Ivan E. Coyote
The Femme Project is made up of a series of 70 photographs, accompanied by wall-mounted text derived from audio interviews. The work documents Vancouver’s self-identified queer femme community, focusing specifically on femme identity, representation and politics. Combined, the images and text distinguish this group, defining it in a world where invisibility is common. They also illustrate the heterogeneous nature of any given group, as the participants range in age, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and experience.
Within the larger creative landscape, despite many important contributions, the amount of work focused on femme identity is relatively small. Historically, the work of writers Minnie Bruce Pratt and Joan Nestle, to name a few, has contributed greatly to femme conceptions. And a recent resurgence of interest in the subject has led to the production of several texts, conferences and documentaries, namely, Del LaGrace Volcano and Ulrika Dahl’s book Femmes of Power (2009), Chloe Brushwood Rose and Anna Camilleri’s book Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity (2002), the San Francisco and Oakland Femme Conferences, and the documentary FTF: Female to Femme by Kami Chisholm and Elizabeth Stark (2006).
As maker of and participant in the project, Toni Latour is particularly interested in continued research into ideas and experiences that define and complicate the lives of queer femmes. In 2007, Out on Screen (Vancouver’s Queer Film Festival) hosted the first screening and panel discussion on femme identity. Latour describes the dialogue as both multifarious and analogous. Overall, she says, there was a sense that femme women, especially femme women of colour, feel invisible in both heteronormative and queer worlds. “Responding to a lack of discourse around femme culture and politics”, this project contributes much needed visual representation, further highlighting “the cultural significance of queer femininities” (Out on Screen 2007 Festival Guide). It contributes a body of work that concentrates directly on femme subjects and subjectivity, allowing us to literally see ourselves.
In bringing participants in to record their stories and capture their images, The Femme Project relays parts of their lives to wider audiences, both uniting the group and offering insights into their experiences. As the project brings the femme community into focus, it allows for continued examination and outward visibility, facilitating the human desire to associate, espoused by author and self-proclaimed gender outlaw, Ivan E. Coyote.
Vancouver’s queer community is vast and changing. There is a sense of strength and accomplishment marking the new decade as we continue to document our lives. Taking her cue from the Queer Film Festival’s recently developed program The Queer History Project, Latour intends for this body of work to contribute to ever expanding queer representations, allowing “our stories to take their rightful place in Canadian History” (Out on Screen 2007 Festival Guide).
Samantha Homenick, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Cindy Enevoldson, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Sarah Leavitt, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Joanie Pham, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Pam Reddy-Speck, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Terra Poirier, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Amber Dawn, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Jocelyn MacDougall, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Tara Robertson, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Joanne Ursino, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Zinnia Heartland, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Dee Arnold, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Fiona Coupar, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Shirleen Chandra, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Linnea Stom, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Jo Lemay, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Mette Bach, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Missy Clarkson, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Amy Dame, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Megan Sehn, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Joanne Lennerton, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Mickey McCaffrey, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Danielle Wiley, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Suzanne Perreault, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Andréa Hector-Brown, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Emah Engleder, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Supriya Ryan, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Toni Latour, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
!Kona, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Kate Parnell, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Nata Belcham, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Elaine Miller, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Fernanda Fukamati, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Zena Sharman, transmounted lightjet prints, 24" x 36" each, 2010
Toni Latour would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts and the BC Arts Council for their generous support of this project. Special thanks also go to Joanne Ursino for her gift in honour of Catherine White Holman, a femme who inspired so many; to Suzanne Perreault for her kind gift to the project; to Rina Larsson for her work on and support of the project; to Toni Latour's studio assistants Connie Freitas, Ana Nikolic, Nozomi Kuwabara and Almira Walde-Renault whose work helped bring this project to fruition; to the committee of participants, sponsors, performers and audience who created Blush: A Femme Project Fundraiser; and finally, to the incredible femmes whose words and images offer so much.
