Butch: Not Like the Other Girls

Exhibit dates:

Thursday, November 6, 2014 to Friday, January 23, 2015

Reception date & time:

November 6, 2014, 7:30 p.m.

Description:

Butch: Not Like the Other Girls is a photographic exploration of the liminal spaces occupied by female masculinity in contemporary communities by photographer SD Holman.

The show’s first incarnation exhibited as a public art project in transit shelters around Vancouver in March-April 2013, with a simultaneous gallery show at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre (the Cultch). According to Cultch administrators, the opening night (which attracted well over 400 attendees and spilled out into the street for half a block) was the largest visual art opening in their 35-year history. The project caused an internet sensation, generating thousands of posts and shares on social media sites, blog posts as far away as Germany and Denmark, and interest for further exhibitions across Canada and the United States.

This project delineates Butch as an inclusive site of resistance to limitations on the way women, gender, and sexuality are still defined. The images honour the beauty, power and diversity of women who transgress the gender binary, interspersed with text written by the photographic subjects themselves. The transversal dialectic of female masculinity is celebrated here — unapologetic and undiluted.