Coral Short

Coral Short
Born 1973
Nationality Canadian

Coral Short (born 1973) is a queer Canadian multi-media artist and curator. Based in Berlin and Montreal, they are best known for their performance art, as a curator of short film programs, and as a creator of affordable queer artist residencies.[1][2]

Career

Short was educated at Concordia University and obtained their master's degree in fine art at the Chelsea School of Art.[3] They use textiles, video, nature, and their own body as their media.[4] Short has curated independent queer films internationally in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe. In this capacity, they have worked with organizations such as MIX NYC, MIX Copenhagen, entzaubert and the Queer Arts Festival.

Multimedia and performance art

In 2012, Short's project The Hole-y Army, featuring choreographed queers and 100 hand-made puppets[5] was integrated into Dyke Marches in New York City, Montreal,[6] Ottawa, and Toronto. Short identifies as a third-wave feminist and is notable within the craftivism movement. They describe this work as "a slow, thoughtful activism [and] a strong powerful display of resistance".[7] Stop Beating Yourself Up, first performed in 2013 at Edgy Women in Montréal, involves Short, wearing boxing gloves and hitting themself for three hours.[8][9] They repeated the same performance, Stop Beating Yourself Up (this time for one hour) at the Vancouver's Queer Arts Festival opening art party in 2015.[9]

Scream Choir (2014) is a sound piece consisting of a large group of people screaming in the formation of a traditional choir.[10] The Laughter Choir (2015) is a similar sound piece with a choir of laughter and was performed at Art in the Open in collaboration with Sarah Wendt (and Russell Louder assisting) along with Scream Choir.[11] Fake Orgasm Choir (2016) is also a large group of people standing in the formation of a traditional choir. Instead of singing notes, they fake orgasms.[12] In 2017, Short used their previous experiences in working with the voice as an instrument and presented a human noise workshop on sound experimentation and production from the body at Sound Acts in Athens, Greece.[13]

Future Visions (2014) is presented as a website of over 100 video tarot cards representing queer voices from Europe and North America.[14] Other performance pieces include GAY INCANTATIONS (2013),[15] Nest (2014),[16] and Plush (2015).

In 2016, Short began curating regular film screenings in Berlin, including a sporty queer video program called 'Pumped' for Gegen, Berlin's biggest queer party.[17] In 2017, they received a grant from Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa in order to pay 115 of the video artists they curated that year.[18]

In 2018, they began a series of short eco performance works on their instagram using the hashtags #beingwithtrees, #beingwithplants, and #beingwithbushes.[19] They also facilitated three plant based ASMR workshops with Jean P\'ark at Martin Gropius Bau as part of Welt ohne Außen: Workshops, curated by Isabel Margarita Lewis. These workshops were an opportunity to hear and create beautiful noises as well as relax.[20]

Films

  • "Gay Incantations"
  • "Genderless Jellyfish" (2013)
  • "HUMANimals"
  • "Lesbian Hand Gestures"
  • "We Don't Want to Marry"

Short was awarded the Hot Shorts award at the 2012 Inside Out Film and Video Festival. In 2014, Short withdrew "We Don't Want to Marry" from the Vancouver Queer Film Festival program because the festival accepted advertising from a pro-Israel group, Yad b'Yad.[21]

References

  1. Jordan Arsen. Edgy Women Blog. "Play like a Caterpillar, Sting like a Butterfly: Coral Short."
  2. Baldwin, Lori (2018). "Berlin: history, hedonism, and wildness". Artquest. Retrieved 24 July 2018.
  3. Official website. Retrieved 28 November 2015
  4. James Goldie. Daily Xtra. "Artist calls for gentleness at Vancouver Queer Arts Festival". Mon, 20 July 2015.
  5. Jessica Schlesinger. Curve Magazine. "Coral Short Brings the March Back to Dyke March". 29 June 2012
  6. Podmore, Julie (2015). "Contested Dyke Rights to the City: Montreal's 2012 Dyke Marches in Time and Space". Lesbian Geographies: Gender, Place and Power. Surrey, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781472443953.
  7. Rachel Fry. Craftivism : the role of feminism in craft activism. Halifax, Nova Scotia. 2014. p.94
  8. del Giusto-Enos, Elysha (5 March 2013). "Sugar, Spice and Blood Packets". The Link. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  9. 1 2 Fleerackers, Alice (30 July 2015). "Interview QAF Artist Coral Short". Sad Mag. Archived from the original on 8 December 2015. Retrieved 4 December 2015.
  10. The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
  11. "Art in the Open / Art à ciel ouvert". this town is small. 2013-02-18. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
  12. kalileoyuen (2016-03-06), Fake Orgasm Choir, retrieved 2018-08-21
  13. "Coral Short". SOUND ACTS. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
  14. The HTMlles 11 Feminist festival of media arts + digital culture. 2014. Retrieved 1 February 2016.
  15. Sad Mag. "Gay Incantations x The One Project". March 5, 2013 Archived 8 December 2015 at the Wayback Machine.
  16. Feminine Moments – Queer Feminist Art Worldwide. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
  17. "ↂ GEGEN OLYMPICS ↂ". gegenberlin. 2016-06-13. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
  18. "Venice, Berlin, Montreal, Amsterdam!". coral short. 2018-01-15. Retrieved 2018-08-21.
  19. Short, Coral (July 24, 2018). "Summer Healing". Coral Short. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
  20. "Coral Short & Jean P\'ark: Ecosensual Echos". Gropius Bau. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
  21. Natasha Barsotti. "UPDATE: Queer film festival criticized for pro-Israel program ad". DailyXtra. 14 August 2014.
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