Lorna Boschman

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Lorna Boschman (1955) is a Canadian Queer media artist, film maker, [1] [2] curator, educator, editor, and camera operator [3] working with themes such as sexual identity, body image, social justice, (dis)ability, cancer, abuse, [3] health, and self-advocacy. [4]

Contents

Life

Boschman was born in Carrot River, Saskatchewan, in 1955. [5] [6] In 2005, she graduated from Emily Carr University of Art and Design with a BFA in Film & Video. [1] She received her master's degree and PhD from Simon Fraser University in 2007 and 2012, in Interactive Arts and Technology. [1] Boschman worked as an arts administrator at Vancouver's Video In Studios (now called VIVO Media Arts Centre) before continuing on her masters and doctoral studies at Simon Fraser University. [7]

In 1992 and 2007, Boschman directed Drawing the Line (1992), True Inversions (1992), and Before the New Millennium (2007), about Vancouver's Kiss & Tell Collective, a "performance and artist collective whose work is concerned with lesbian sexuality."

Career

Boschman was featured in Montréal's 29 Festival International Du Film Sur L'Art in 2011, at the Panorama of Quebec and Canadian Video, [1] where two evenings of her retrospective works were showcased and curated by Nicole Gringas. [8] Her work has also been shown internationally, in retrospectives as theatrical programs in Brussels in 2014, exhibitions in Milan that same year, [4] [1] as well as at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. [8] Her short film Scars (1987) dealt with self-mutilation and cutting by young women. [9] Scars was included in a notable traveling exhibition called Rebel Girls: A Survey of Canadian Feminist Videotapes 1974-1988. Our Normal Childhood (1988) explored childhood sexual abuse. [10]

From 2012 until 2016, Boschman worked as Project Manager and Faculty Associate for Cancer's Margins, a research study focusing on LGBT2Q persons who have been diagnosed with, and treated for breast and/or gynecological cancers. [7] [2] The work explores the experiences these people face, how they can or have access care, how they are communicated information about their health, and the support they receive during treatment. [1] Working alongside Dr. Mary Bryson, Boschman led Cancer's Margins Digital Storytelling Workshops, [2] and also worked as a mentor for patients with metastatic cancer. [1]

Permanent collections

Boschman's video works Scars (1987) and Our Normal Childhood (1988) are in the National Gallery of Canada's permanent collection. [4] [11] [12] Her work Drawing the Line is included in the permanent collection of the Centre audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir in Paris. [13]

Awards

Boschman has won several awards for her work, including the NFB Kathleen Shannon Award at Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival, for Inside/OUT! (2000); [14] the Judge's Award, Northwest Film and Video Festival for True Inversions (1992); and during the 2016 Vancouver's Mayor's Arts Awards, Boschman was nominated as an honoree in Film & New Media [1] by a panel of her peers.

Media artworks

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Kiss and Tell is a Vancouver, British Columbia based performance and artist collective whose work is concerned with lesbian sexuality. In 1990, collective members Persimmon Blackbridge, Lizard Jones and Susan Stewart used the intense debates within 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. "Drawing the Line" was made in response to the "porn wars" of the late 80's-the feminist debate of if female sexual imagery was more oppressive to women, or if it was empowering to women. Kiss and Tell's work explicitly embraced depictions of female sexuality, and encouraged the conversation between anti-porn feminists and sex positive feminists. The art was controversial, even more so as it was released in the era of the Red Hot Video Store bombings. The collective displayed their work to point out the double standard in which artists exploring politics and sexuality are "cause for alarm" and yet adult films and magazines that are much more explicit are of no concern. This show was about desensitizing the view of queer sex and relationships. It intended to make lesbian relationships just as visible as straight relationships. Through the intimate exploration of queer bodies, The Kiss and Tell collective gave space for lesbians to perform and share their experiences. The show traveled widely in Canada and the United States in the 1990s, as well as showing in Australia and the Netherlands. In the summer of 2015 Kiss and Tell had redisplayed and revisited their exhibition "Drawing the Line." This was featured at the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival in celebration of the work's 25th anniversary, and was the first time in 13 years that it had been displayed.

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References

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  2. 1 2 3 "British Columbia | Cancer's Margins Project: LGBT2Q Cancer Health and Care Experiences". www.lgbtcancer.ca. Retrieved 2018-03-31.
  3. 1 2 "Media Queer – Lorna Boschman". www.mediaqueer.ca. 30 April 2015. Retrieved 2018-03-31.
  4. 1 2 3 Commer. "Lorna Boschman, Post-doctoral researcher and Project Co-Ordinator, University of British Columbia Cancer's Margins | Commer". www.wecommer.com. Retrieved 2018-03-31.
  5. Thomas Waugh (2006). Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. pp. 374–. ISBN   978-0-7735-7680-3.
  6. "Lorna Boschman". www.gallery.ca. Retrieved 2018-03-29.
  7. 1 2 "Episode 3: Lorna Boschman | VIVO Media Arts Centre". www.vivomediaarts.com. Retrieved 2018-03-31.
  8. 1 2 3 "Artist | Vtape". www.vtape.org. Retrieved 2018-03-31.
  9. Social Discourse. McGill University, Comparative Literature Program. 1990.
  10. Michael Renov; Erika Suderburg (1996). Resolutions: Contemporary Video Practices. U of Minnesota Press. pp. 201–. ISBN   978-0-8166-2330-3.
  11. "Lorna Boschman: Scars". gallery.ca. National Gallery of Canada. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  12. "Lorna Boschman: Our Normal Childhood". gallery.ca. National Gallery of Canada. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  13. base.centre-simone-de-beauvoir.com/DIAZ-Drawing-the-Line-510-161-0-12.html
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