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The confluence of poetry and photography in a new exhibit at the Edge Gallery on Main Street aims to capture the space between two existences: being queer and an active member of the Italian-Canadian community.
“Those of us who are maybe second or third generation descendants of immigrants... have experienced this kind of fossilization of values and culture,” elaborates Liana Cusmano, one of the creators of Unveiling the Queer Italian-Canadian Experience. “Often, those are not especially feminist or inclusive. And there is a pattern or a trajectory that a lot of people are expected to follow, which is that you would be in a heterosexual relationship and that you would get married and that you would have children.”
Cusmano, a poet, worked alongside photographer Vincenzo Pietropaolo with the support of the Queer and Trans Research Lab at the Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at the University of Toronto to document queer Italian-Canadians in an uncomplicated but present way.
“I photographed them the same way I photographed anybody else – with respect and dignity,” says Pietropaolo, whose work documenting social justice causes across the country recently earned him an investiture into the Order of Canada. “The pictures are basically straightforward portraits which are done over a period of time, and usually in a favourite space chosen by the subject, where they feel comfortable.”
Cusmano first became comfortable with their sexuality in poetry circles in Montreal, and, like Pietropaolo, relied on the trust of the subject to render them into art that is posted side by side in the exhibition, each printed at the same size.
“It’s not always immediately obvious that they’re about Italianess or that they’re about queerness,” they say of their work. “Sometimes they’re about both. Sometimes it’s very clear and sometimes it’s a little bit more subtle. But we’ve heard from people who visit the exhibit who will say something like, ‘I saw myself in that poem,’ or, ‘I saw myself in that photograph.’ I think that really speaks to the power of the photos and the poems together.”
“They each give strength to each other,” Pietropaolo adds. “You have like a third language. That third language is neither poetry nor photography but a combination of the two.”
As they reflect on their journey of coming out, Cusmano notes that seeing this representation would have been huge for them to see. “I didn’t know any out queer Italian-Canadians who could celebrate the parts of their culture and their heritage that are important to them and who could also celebrate their queerness and be open about their queerness,” they say. “I think to have had that example, to have seen people exploring this or living this and artists exploring it and giving it attention and spreading that awareness, I think I would have had more of a model to follow, and I think those models and that encouragement is very important, especially for young queer people.”
Unveiling the Queer Italian-Canadian Experience is on display at the Edge Gallery (611 Main Street) until July 25. The gallery is open from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. More information is available at the gallery’s website.