Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects

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Cassils, "Becoming An Image, Performance Still No. 4" (National Theater Studio, SPILL Festival, London), 2013

c-print, 22" x 30" (edition of 5, photo by Cassils with Manuel Vason; courtesy the artist and Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York)

Part shrine, part cabinet of curiosities, part celebration of all things trans, an exhibition at the University of Victoria’s downtown Legacy Art Gallery gives voice to a community that faces prejudice and violence. Building on initiatives within contemporary art that interrogate institutional archives and unearth alternative visions, this transgender history – or, hirstory, as it’s sometimes called in gender-neutral terms – is a milestone.

The show, which continues to March 29, is titled Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects. It's the latest version of an ongoing project curated by American artist Chris Vargas, who was inspired by A History of the World in 100 Objects, a joint project of the BBC and the British Museum, and The Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects.

Vargas is the founder of the Museum of Transgender Hirstory and Art, an imaginary institution that coalesces for temporary events, while remaining perennially under construction. The 99 objects – an eventual goal – seek to illuminate the stories of this marginalized community.

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"Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects," 2018

installation view at Legacy Gallery, University of Victoria (photo by Holly Cecil)

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"Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects," 2018

installation view at Legacy Gallery, University of Victoria (photo by Holly Cecil)

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This is the museum’s first foray into Canada, following earlier projects in Los Angeles and Seattle. This time, Vargas curated art and archival material from UVic’s Transgender Archives, a remarkable collection that includes everything from books and newspaper clippings to photographs and paintings. According to Aaron Devore, the university’s chair of transgender studies, it’s the world’s largest archive of materials related to trans, gender non-binary and two-spirit people. If its shelves were set out end-to-end, they would be as long as a football field.

The show is engagingly displayed and includes a broad range of media, as well as memorabilia like buttons and T-shirts. A glass-topped cabinet holds a copy of the autobiography of American nightclub entertainer Christine Jorgensen, an early trans celebrity. Nearby, visitors can listen to 1979 punk music by Wayne County and The Electric Chairs, featuring Jayne County, an openly transgender singer.

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Nan Goldin, "Misty and Joey at Hornstrasse, Berlin, 1992," 1992

photographic print (University of Victoria Libraries, Transgender Archives, gift of Richard Ekins)

There’s a photograph by Nan Goldin, who documented New York’s queer and counterculture scenes in New York in the 1970s and 1980s. A 2016 series, Trisha, by Canadian artist Vivek Shraya, recreates family snapshots. Other images document a performance by Cassils, a Canadian artist known for attacking a one-ton block of clay in the dark to evoke the struggles of trans people. Two videos by the late Aiyanna Maracle, a Huadenosaunee artist and educator active in Vancouver, offer an Indigenous perspective.

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Vivek Shraya, "Trisha," 2016

text and photographic prints (on loan from the artist)

The show’s importance to a community that has faced erasure was evidenced by the standing-room-only crowd at the curatorial talk. Undoubtedly, it will help people learn about histories they may never have encountered. But as interesting and as timely as the show is, it’s perhaps less successful as an introduction, despite helpful didactic panels and a reading table with books such as Nicholas M. Teich's Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue. One senses this is primarily a show by a community, for a community. ■

Trans Hirstory in 99 Objects continues to March 29, 2018.