kim edgar |
we are sacred when we straddle both sides (an altar to the threshold)
September 23 – October 30, 2021
Opening Thursday, September 23rd
Artist Talk at 7:30pm, Reception to follow
Exhibition statement:
There is a sacredness to those who exist on a threshold. People who transcend opposites have knowledge and freedoms that frighten others, whether they transcend the binary of gender, or the binary of life and death, or the binary of spirit and material worlds.
In the past, people who could move freely between opposites were considered healers with wisdom to offer. But for those of us who exist on this threshold – or have crossed a threshold – in this present day, we face marginalization by the wider world.
Living on the threshold of gender, or having crossed that seemingly impenetrable barrier, trans people have a great deal of experience and insight that cis people will never have. But if all we receive as trans people is violence, negation of our personhood, and othering by the cis population, is there impetus (or is it even safe) to connect with a population who hates us? Similarly, disabled people live in the sacred space between life and death, between health and wellness; what crip wisdom should we (can we, safely) share as disabled people? Do able-bodied people deserve our knowledge after they have disposed of us so easily?
The land, too, is in a state of flux. We live in a liminal state between what our climate used to be, and what the future holds as it changes. As a species, what does it mean to live in this state of rapid change? What can we learn from this state in between?
Living on the threshold means leaning into discomfort, learning to investigate pain, kissing the faces of your fears. This existence frightens people because most people are adverse to discomfort. But those who exist between binaries understand the sacredness of pain, the mutability of our options, and we know how personal suffering lends us a deeper understanding of the world.
These pieces, which I began making in 2018, have continued to this day as I work through my experiences of liminality.
– kim edgar, 2021
*content warning: suicide, violence, gore, nudity, sexuality
KIMBERLY EDGAR is an interdisciplinary artist living on Tr’ondek Hwech’in land in so-called Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. Kim’s work reflects on experiences of both the medical system and the ennui that comes with being sick with no end. Their work often compares human bodies with the land-as-body, contemplating the sacred liminality of disability and transness. Kim holds a Broken Pencil Zine Award for best comic for their comic The Purpose (2019), and has been nominated for two Doug Wright Awards (2021) for their comic The Space in Between (2020). Kim is also the recipient of grants from Cue (2018), Canada Council (2019), On Yukon Time (2020), Culture Quest (2020), and the Yukon Advanced Artist Award (2020). Kim recently started a small press, Hecate Press, by editing and publishing a northern comics anthology called The Northern Gaze (2021). With pieces in the Yukon Permanent Art Collection and the Ottawa Direct Purchase Program, Kim is currently working on a debut graphic novel and a solo show at Odd Gallery in the fall of 2021.
