Irma Freeman Center
Queer Ecology Hanky Project is a traveling exhibition and project with 96 artist bandanas from across North America--from Vancouver to Mexico City--organized by Vanessa Adams and Mary Tremonte.
Recent exhibitions of the project showcase a diverse array of artist responses to Queer Ecology—an area of inquiry which unites the study of biology, environment, and sexuality with a framework of queer theory–and a wide spectrum of print mediums and methods. The February 2020 exhibition at the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination was the first complete exhibit of the Queer Ecology Hanky Project, with a soft opening of most of the artists taking place in October 2019, at the White Page Gallery in Minneapolis.
Queer Ecology Hanky Project has given us windows into divergent possibilities for gender and sexuality, models of resilience and resistance in a world that feels increasingly bleak. In recent years, queers of all genders and proclivities have expanded the definitions of the original gay hanky code—which emerged in the United States in the early 1970s, as a means for gay men to subtly communicate sexual desires—to include different bodies, identities, and activities. This show originates from a love of designing, printing, and distributing bandanas as wearable artwork, and a means to continue a queer communication of flagging, of finding affinity with plants, animals, mycelia, and each other.
Queer Ecology Hanky Project is full of artwork intended for activation – artist bandanas that will hopefully accompany walks in the woods, accessorize outfits at queer dance parties, bundle up foraged mushrooms, and start conversations. In that spirit, our past exhibitions have been accompanied by a hanky code dance party, Sappho: Hanky Situation, an artist market, a talk exploring the deeper points of Queer Ecology and a series of workshops exploring printmaking and hanky adornment techniques utilized by artists in the project.
The Queer Ecology Hanky Project is: Vanessa Adams, Eana Agoplan, Dana Aleshire, Finley Baker, Luca Bartlow, Douglas Baulos, Chris Bernstein, Amanda Blix, Milica Bogetić, Aja Bond, Natasha Brennan, Ginger Brooks Takahashi, Jim Bullard, Eli Campanaro, Maya Carey, Christina Castillo, Chemlawn/Sarah McDermott, Devon Cohen, Jen Cooney, Molly Costello, Amy V Cousins, Lorraine Cruz, J. Avery Theodore Daisey, Alek de Dóchas, Heather Douglas, Jessika Fancy, Zeph Fishlyn, Kerri Flannigan, Pidge Fletching, Keith Foster, Carlee Freeman, Lindsey French, Matta Ghaly, Clement Hil Goldberg, Mia Greenwald, Jacq Groves, L Hammel, Ian Hanesworth, Mel Hardy, East Hartsock, Eriko Hattori, E Henderson, Tristan Higginbotham, Eli Howey, Meg Houston, Hana Jimenez, Katie Kaplan, Devon Kelley-Yurdin, Karey Kenst, Zhen Yang Lee, Rowan Leek, Levi LaBruzzy, Sam Loewen, Selena Loomis, Ayden Love, Alyx Rene Lunada, Soren Lundi, Drea Marcos, Georgia McCandlish, Kate McNeely, Bekezela Mguni, A-B Moore, Kate Morales, Émilie Mulcahey, Mary Murph, Andrea Narno, Celeste Neuhaus, Lex Non Scripta, Jason Patten, Zackary Petot, Chris Pilewski, Em Pike, Nevena Pilipovic-Wengler, Cee Please, Claire Ragland, A. Reid, Jenna Reid, Syr Reifsteck, Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes, Rigel Richardson, Nora Rickey, Quinn Rivenburgh, Avery Rose, Erin Roussel, E.T. Russian, Lucy Satzewich, August Schultz, Nick Shick, H Simon, Willy Smart, Marta Syrup, Corinne Teed, Trash Tmblweed, Frankie Toan, Amalia Kalisz Tonsor, Mary Tremonte, Anna Wagner, Blue Wallick, Vivien Wise, Summer Wood, Natalie Woodlock, and Jon Woolley.
It is organized by Mary Tremonte and Vanessa Adams.