Phase Variations

A catalogue documenting the exhibition, Phase Variations, by Lou Sheppard. Acting as an archive in and of itself, the publication houses a multitude of ephemera collected and created to memorialize the show—a fold-out poster of a series of artworks; contact sheets of photo documentation; Risograph-printed video still; postcards; photocopies; a pamphlet of commissioned essays, all sealed in a bespoke file folder in either grey or lilac*.

Published Dec 2022 • ISBN 978-1-7775549-5-8 • prints, pamphlet and postcards (multiple special inserts); 8.75 × 11.25 in; loose leaf; limited edition
Essays by Undine Clara Foulds, Brody Weaver, francesca ekwuyasi, and Robin Metcalfe; Risograph print by spek work; design and production by Copy Shop Studio; photo documentation by Rebecca Delle Monache

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Drawing inspiration as well as content from a community archive of queer materials collected over many decades, the exhibition aimed to rediscover and celebrate the often excluded and erased queer history in Atlantic Canada.

“Phase Variations has been a year(s)-long research project, culminating in an exhibition and publication. The project draws on Robin Metcalfe’s archive of queer presence in the Atlantic region, exploring the queer ways that we as queer people find ourselves, our ancestors, and imagine our futures. Digging through these archives, I have read the collected objects and stories for the spaces and slippages they reveal in the dominant historical record. Can reading the evolution of Canada’s obscenity laws show us how perversity was constructed by the state? Can studying the routes of protests and marches reveal paths of queer movement in the city? Can we read a homophobic remark of the past as a site of queer potential?” — Lou Sheppard

Phase Variations (exhibition)
February 22–April 17, 2022, Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, Halifax NS
Curated by Robin Metcalfe; Reading Room curated by Undine Foulds

Lou Sheppard would like to acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. ¶ Saint Mary’s University Art Gallery would like to acknowledge the support of the city of Halifax.

*Shipment folder colours are randomly selected