G101 and Inter Pares present: daughters, mothers, grandmothers, and other sexual outlaws
Join us for the in-person vernissage:
Saturday, September 21
2:00 – 5:00 PM
Gallery 101 (280 Catherine Street, Ottawa)
No registration required.
While the idea of “passing down” knowledge through generations is common, in reality the formation of intergenerational knowledge is multidirectional. Older generations are challenged, changed and informed by younger ones and vice-versa. Featuring works by photographers Taslima Akhter, Lisa Marie David, and Jessica Xiomara Orellana Ventura, daughters, mothers, grandmothers and other sexual outlaws documents intergenerational exchanges and youth leadership fueling sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) activism around the world, at the family and community levels.
Co-curated by Inter Pares and three international counterparts, this exhibition showcases the work of engaged documentary photographers to provide a glimpse into the lives and struggles of feminist activists across El Salvador, rural landless communities in Bangladesh, and in informal settlements of Manila in the Philippines.
Inter Pares –which means among equals– is a 50-year-old feminist social justice organization based in Ottawa that believes in solidarity, not charity, as an approach to international cooperation. Throughout their longstanding collaborations with Inter Pares, La Colectiva Feminista para el Desarrollo Local (El Salvador), Nijera Kori (Bangladesh) and Likhaan Center for Women’s Health (the Philippines) have worked within their local communities and national contexts to address issues related to SRHR, including sexual and gender-based violence, access to contraceptives and abortion, and child marriage. While the three counterparts face different political and social circumstances and have different aims, all of them operate within societies that are hostile to notions of bodily autonomy for girls, women, and gender-diverse people, making their work revolutionary and urgent. Their work is dangerous – thus the term ‘sexual outlaws’.
The majority of people affected by this work and represented in this exhibition are girls and women. But as our title indicates, they are also daughters, mothers, grandmothers but don’t always fit neatly into those labels. What does happen is that mothers talk to daughters, grandmothers talk to mothers, daughters talk to both. And opinions and knowledge get shared and discussed and people – including boys and men – change. A daughter is encouraged to use contraception by her mother. A daughter encourages her mother to go to the protest against sexual and gender-based violence. A grandmother accepts her granddaughter as queer. Fathers support their daughters to become strong and independent young women who take their own decisions. And they collectively build momentum for SRHR.
Inter Pares’ counterparts worked closely with local photographers Taslima Akhter (Bangladesh), Lisa Marie David (the Philippines) and Jessica Xiomara Orellana Ventura (El Salvador) to document their work, building on previous collaborations.
Together, the visual and storytelling components of this exhibition aim to contribute to documentary and pedagogical practices regarding contemporary forms of activism around the world. Guided by a global to local approach, daughters, mothers, grandmothers and other sexual outlaws also wishes to instigate timely conversations about the status of SRHR here in Canada, where recent events have renewed attention to longstanding challenges of access to reproductive health services and ongoing threats to bodily autonomy.
This project is part of a collaboration between Inter Pares and longstanding counterparts Likhaan Center for Women’s Health in the Philippines, Nijera Kori in Bangladesh, La Colectiva Feminista para el desarrollo local in El Salvador, and the Sudanese Organization for Research and Development in Sudan. The partnership came together through the project Strategic Interventions to Build Momentum on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (or Buil-Mo), funded by Global Affairs Canada.
Visiting the Gallery
No registration required
We ask all visitors to wear masks and self-test prior to arriving. If you or anyone in your household has COVID or flu symptoms, please stay home.
Mask Days
Saturday, September 28 and Saturday, October 5
Masks will be mandatory for G101 staff and all visitors on these two days.
We have plenty of KN-95 masks in three different sizes available for free by the gallery entrance.
Accessibility
G101’s front entrance door is at grade and is power-operated.
The gallery is accessible on both of its floors.
We have three gender-neutral washrooms, with an accessible washroom on the ground floor.
Gallery Hours
Gallery 101 is open Tuesday - Saturday
1:00 - 5:00 PM
(Closed Saturday, October 12th for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend)