4-14 August 2016
POSTER HEROS 2016 - 10th Anniversary Edition
1. Navtej Singh Johar - Gay Bharatanatyam dancer, one of the celebrities behind the Indian constitutional challenge of colonial-era sodomy legislation Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalizes sexual activities "against the order of nature". Briefly overturned in 2009, it was reinstated in 2013.
2. Roger Casement - Northern Irish diplomat who exposed colonial abuses in the Congo and Brazil. He later became an Irish nationalist who arranged the first arms shipments to the Republicans. After being arrested by the British, his diaries were leaked to the press containing stories of his homosexual encounters so public opinion turned against him and he was hanged.
3. ANOHNI - Transgender Anglo-American musician, known for her band Antony and the Johnsons. Recent single is entitled “Drone Bomb Me”.
4. Black Lives Matters - Queer heros and inspirations from Toronto who were invited to lead Toronto’s 2016 Pride Parade and held a sit-in, successfully having their demands met by organizers. They remind us how to keep Pride political and how important it is to confront anti-Black racism in all queer communities
5. La Hija de Perra - Chilean trans punk superstar, film star, activist who passed away in 2014. She stars in the 2004 'biopic' Empaná de Pino in which she sells human-meat empanadas in the market and makes a pact with supernatural entities who promise to raise her lover from the dead. Que descanses en poder!
6. Diamanda Galas - Legendary composer, writer, activist and musician. Her performance The Plague Mass of 1990 is a terrifying cry that demanding that audiences observe that which they may not wish to. In “Confessional (Give Me Sodomy or Give Me Death),” the narrator’s voice bleeds into the frantic voice of the defiant dying, blending in with the conjured voices of angels of death that hover over the bed. Yes, it is odd she's never been on our poster before.
7. Cookie Mueller - American actor and writer, featured in work by John Waters and Nan Goldin. She died of AIDS-related causes at the height of the epidemic in 1989.
8. Willem Arondeus - Dutch anti-Nazi/anti-Fascist activist who bombed public records facilities to protect Jews’ identities. He was openly gay and died by execution saying “Let it be known that homosexuals are not cowards.”
9. Claude Cahun - Lesbian surrealist artist, photographer, writer and anti-Nazi/anti-Fascist activists. She was a French artist, photographer and writer. Her work was both political and personal, and often undermined traditional concepts of gender roles.
