Kiss and Tell collective
Encyclopedia
Kiss and Tell is a Vancouver
, British Columbia
based performance and artist collective whose work is concerned with lesbian sexuality http://www.thefestival.bc.ca/archive/index.php?perID=2573. In 1990, collective members Persimmon Blackbridge, Lizard Jones and Susan Stewart used the intense debates with in the queer
community around sexual practice in the early 1990s to create the photographic exhibition Drawing the Line. Their photographs depicted a continuum of lesbian
sexual practice ranging from kissing to whipping, bondage, and voyeurism. The project encouraged gallery viewers to comment on what they saw and how it made them feel by writing directly on the walls around the prints; allowing the viewer to "draw the line" and examine their ideas and beliefs about different sexual behaviors http://www.glbtq.com/arts/photography_lesbian_post_stonewall,3.html. The show traveled widely in Canada and the USA in the 1990s, as well as showing in Australia and the Netherlands.
Group member Lizard Jones remembers the impact of the show in her community of Vancouver, and beyond: "There was/is a lot to say, and a lot to learn from audiences at our talks. Our first performance piece... True Inversions, evolved quite directly from those experiences, from a desire to say things that were non-verbal, visual, or more emotive, things that had no place in talks" http://www.rumble.org/trans/transmission2-1.htm
True Inversions was a multi-media performance that caused a similar stir across the country, and resulted in the book, Her Tongue on my Theory: Images, Essays and Fantasies http://www.thefestival.bc.ca/archive/index.php?perID=2573 which won a Lambda Award in 1995 http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:rl4tXbeUluoJ:www.givideo.org/videastesAF/Kiss%26TellA.html+Lizard+Jones+%22That+Long+Distance+Feeling%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=ca. Lorna Boschman directed three videos about Kiss & Tell: Drawing the Line (1992), True Inversions (1992), and Before the New Millennium (2007)http://www.videoout.ca/catalog/new-millenium.
Kiss and Tell premiered That Long Distance Feeling: Perverts, Politics & Prozac
in Vancouver in November 1997 http://www.givideo.org/videastesAF/Kiss&TellA.html.
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
based performance and artist collective whose work is concerned with lesbian sexuality http://www.thefestival.bc.ca/archive/index.php?perID=2573. In 1990, collective members Persimmon Blackbridge, Lizard Jones and Susan Stewart used the intense debates with in the queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
community around sexual practice in the early 1990s to create the photographic exhibition Drawing the Line. Their photographs depicted a continuum of lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
sexual practice ranging from kissing to whipping, bondage, and voyeurism. The project encouraged gallery viewers to comment on what they saw and how it made them feel by writing directly on the walls around the prints; allowing the viewer to "draw the line" and examine their ideas and beliefs about different sexual behaviors http://www.glbtq.com/arts/photography_lesbian_post_stonewall,3.html. The show traveled widely in Canada and the USA in the 1990s, as well as showing in Australia and the Netherlands.
Group member Lizard Jones remembers the impact of the show in her community of Vancouver, and beyond: "There was/is a lot to say, and a lot to learn from audiences at our talks. Our first performance piece... True Inversions, evolved quite directly from those experiences, from a desire to say things that were non-verbal, visual, or more emotive, things that had no place in talks" http://www.rumble.org/trans/transmission2-1.htm
True Inversions was a multi-media performance that caused a similar stir across the country, and resulted in the book, Her Tongue on my Theory: Images, Essays and Fantasies http://www.thefestival.bc.ca/archive/index.php?perID=2573 which won a Lambda Award in 1995 http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:rl4tXbeUluoJ:www.givideo.org/videastesAF/Kiss%26TellA.html+Lizard+Jones+%22That+Long+Distance+Feeling%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=ca. Lorna Boschman directed three videos about Kiss & Tell: Drawing the Line (1992), True Inversions (1992), and Before the New Millennium (2007)http://www.videoout.ca/catalog/new-millenium.
Kiss and Tell premiered That Long Distance Feeling: Perverts, Politics & Prozac
in Vancouver in November 1997 http://www.givideo.org/videastesAF/Kiss&TellA.html.
Artist biographies
- Persimmon Blackbridge is a visual artist and writer whose work has focused on lesbian sex and sexual representation, disability culture, and the mental illness system http://www.clga.ca/About/NPC/BlackbridgeP-149.htm.
- Lizard Jones is a visual artist, award-winning writer, and performer living in Vancouver, with experience in radio and alternative print media. Her novel, Two Ends of Sleep, was published by Press Gang PublishersPress Gang PublishersPress Gang Publishing was a [feminist]] printing and publishing collective active in [Vancouver, BC, Canada between the early 1970s and 2002.-Early history:...
in 1997 http://www.rumble.org/trans/transmission2-1.htm.
- Susan Stewart has been producing photography and multi-media performance works since 1978. She also teaches and has an M.F.A. from Simon Fraser UniversitySimon Fraser UniversitySimon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...
. Her most recent work, "Lovers & Warriors: aural/photographic collaborations," was an installation produced in collaboration with 25 women, mostly lesbians, which explores issues of gender, marginality, and the politics of photographic representation http://www.cla.purdue.edu/waaw/corinne/KissTell.htm.