07/03/2026
View the new exhibition Passing Through | Jason Purcell in conversation with Kyle Terrence from July 8–25 at the Latitude 53 gallery! Members and guests are invited for the opening reception on July 10 at 7 PM.
Through conversations and collaborations with artist Kyle Terrence and inspired by his 2019 exhibition and short film ‘Berta Boys, Jason Purcell recasts archetypes of q***r Albertan masculinity: namely, the q***r kid who can’t quite hold on to it and the man who wears it as a costume. For those who came of age in Alberta during the ‘90s and ‘00s—and perhaps still—covertness and survival are difficult to unstitch from one another; safety, community, and connection, then, were cultivated on the sly, in private spaces.
Passing Through evokes the transitory space of the motel, the movement of needle and thread through material, and for the q***r Albertan of a certain age, the practice of eliding accusations of q***rness. Through a practice of looking/feeling backward, à la Heather Love, this project recasts the prairie aesthetics of compulsory heteromasculinity with a q***r eye toward tenderness, desire, and safety. Maybe, after the lights go out and the sun sets, after the last car exits the lot and the lock is turned on the motel room door, another Alberta comes to exist that we are free to make home in.
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