Part of Harold Offeh’s current exhibition at Kettle’s Yard focuses on the queer culture of Toronto, one of Canada’s largest cities. Toronto is a key touchpoint of Canada’s queer history, and was the site of Canada’s equivalent of the Stonewall rebellion. On 5 February 1981, police raided four bathhouses in Toronto, which offered private spaces for queer men to meet and engage in relationships. The infamous ‘Operation Soap’ resulted in the arrest of 286 men and in response, the community organised a 3,000-person march, and the city’s first official Pride Parade was held in June.
In 2018 Offeh held a 12-hour performance called Down at the Twilight Zone in Toronto, which included installations, performances, readings and more, celebrating Toronto’s queer culture and nightlife. As part of the performance, Offeh created a series of bright, bold posters which documented Toronto’s queer history. These are now on display in the exhibition at Kettle’s Yard.
The posters include references to Operation Soap and other injustices experienced by the queer community, in addition to significant historical moments for queer representation across sport, politics, business, and culture. This documentation of historical and cultural moments demonstrate that queer history is a vast collection of experiences and stories, and one not solely defined by trauma and oppression.
During his time in Toronto, Offeh explored the city’s queer history and gathered archival recordings from ArQuives of queer men from the 1940s to the 1980s, to create a telephone installation where audiences can discover the stories of LGBTQ+ Canadians. In the audio, the men explore their experiences of being queer in Toronto at this time, discussing their relationships, popular cruising spots and more. You can listen to this audio in the exhibition and on Bloomberg Connects, our free digital guide.
Offeh engages with queer joy and celebration throughout the exhibition, as seen in works such as Snap Like a Diva, which explores the glamorous world of pop stars and divas, and how they perform their identity. Snapping is an inherently camp expression which has entered mainstream popular culture in recent years, and involves clicking your fingers together in an exaggerated and dramatic manner. This derived from the Black American gay sub-cultures of the 1980s and 90s and the New York Ballroom dance scene. Documentaries like Tongues United and Paris is Burning exposed this culture to a wider audience, leading to the Vogueing dance craze of the 90s.
As part of this work, Offeh led a series of workshops encouraging people to ‘Snap Like a Diva’, offering practical sessions teaching participants how to snap and express themselves through movement. The workshops typically ended in a ‘grand diva snap contest’ where participants competed to attain diva status. The original video work Snap Like a Diva is on display in the exhibition at Kettle’s Yard, and highlights key themes which run through Offeh’s work, including gender, performance, and play.
Discover all of these works and more LGBTQ+ history in Harold Offeh’s exhibition, open at Kettle’s Yard until Sunday 1 March.
Harold Offeh: Mmm, Gotta Try a Little Harder, It Could Be Sweet
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