The Learning Zone

Hey, wow, it’s a new video in External Space!

This Goes Out to All My Girls is the fifth and final work in a series of “unassuming, documentary-type videos” from emerging Canadian artists curated by OCADU grad Jennifer Simaitis. In this video, a young woman (Elise Boudreau Graham, the force both in and behind This Goes Out to All My Girls) dances just like Beyoncé in Run the World (Girls) — only, by decontextualizing the choreography and peeling away the fashions, makeup, backdrops, charismatic acting, and production values, Graham’s performance is strikingly bare and mechanical. In her exhibition precis, Simaitis writes:

This Goes Out To All My Girls uses pop culture and its tropes as access points to interrogate mediated or purposed identities, and the implications of pop icons as paragons. […] The visual glitz and glamour of [Beyoncé’s] original video is stripped away, resulting in a tension between an awkward fan video and an empowering critique of prescribed gender expectations in the twenty-first century.

Elise Boudreau Graham is in her final year of a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. On her art blog, she describes herself as an interdisciplinary artist who “works mostly with paper & fabric & found objects” and who “likes to read non fiction & watch bad television & dance.” Graham has been exhibiting in Halifax since 2008, but This Goes Out to All My Girls is her Toronto debut!

This Goes Out to All My Girls will be on exhibit until April 23rd. You’ve got a whole month, but don’t procrastinate — stop by the Learning Zone and check it out!