Hilary Harp + Suzie Silver present the inaugural Fairy Fantastic! screenings of Out in the Woods: Queer Folk and Fairy Tales and Over the Rainbow: Queer and Experimental Shorts for Kids of All Ages at Pittsburgh Filmmakers as part of their Luna Park Experimental Film and Media Series.

Out in the Woods includes eleven queer interpretations of world folk and fairy tales including Filipino and Chinese mythologies exploring queer diasporic identities; same-sex love in a prehispanic Mexican ritual; a Samoan Cinderella; and a queer retelling of a Swedish folk-tale about two sisters, three wishes and a calamitous obsession with a sausage. The films in Out in the Woods are both a reinterpretation of traditional folklore or mythology and the invention of a new queer folk culture.

Over the Rainbow: Queer and Experimental Shorts for Kids of All Ages presents eight short films on difference-affirming, gender-variance, and anti-bullying themes. A shy boy’s heart jumps out of his chest to follow a bookish boy right into school – will the shy boy ever get his heart back?  Why are all of Alexa’s favorite things, like car-shaped beds, super balls, and soccer called “boy things?” If your Mom is an airplane, what is your Dad? Can a merman ensnare a beautiful landsman by playing a song from Disney’s Little Mermaid on the violin? Can a bat who sleeps all day find a night-time friend?  The answers to these and many more questions can be found in Over the Rainbow a screening of queer and experimental videos for kids of all ages. The short films in Over the Rainbow are moving, hilarious, beautiful and inventive visions of a genderfluid world.  As finely wrought as they are entertaining, the films in Over the Rainbow will delight kids and parents alike.

Over the Rainbow was preceded by Drag Queen Story Hour presided over by the delightful Akasha L. Van-Cartier.

Press: WESA, Pittsburgh City Paper

April 6, 2018, Harp & Silver presented an overview of Fairy Fantastic! as well as a preview of our curated film program, Over the Rainbow: Queer and Experimental Shorts for Kids of All Ages. This two day conference hosted by University of Pittsburgh explored "how to conceptualize, theorize, and approach research on children and childhood in the rapidly changing context of the twenty-first century."

We learned so much and were inspired by every panel and presentation we were able to attend. Thanks so much to Julian Gill-Peterson and everyone else who helped to put together such an amazing event.
https://www.playingwithchildhood.com/

We are thrilled that The Sausage was selected for inclusion in the second edition of the QUEER KAMPALA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (QUEERKIFF) to be held from December 8^th – 10^th  2017.  The first queer film festival to be held in Uganda, QUEERKIFF celebrates the diversity of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Intersex and Queer communities by providing spaces where Queer films are screened, discussed and celebrated.

The inaugural Queer Kampala International Film Festival was held 9th – 11th, December 2016 at different venues in the country’s capital, Kampala, marking the  first time in Uganda that a festival celebrating and reinforcing the right to be LGBTQI was held.

From the Queer KIFF website:

“History: The inaugural Queer Kampala International Film Festival was held 9th – 11th, December 2016 at different venues in the country’s capital Kampala. Security measures included screening of attendees, keeping the venues secret and mobile daily. The attendants had to go to a different venue in the morning and afternoon. Venues were announced within hours to the event. Encouragingly, the LGBTIQ community, supporters and sympathizers hung in there and religiously followed us to the different venues attracting a turn up of more than 836 visitors with in a space of three days.”

On 8th December 2017, the first day of the 2nd edition of the QKIFF opened in Kampala and was a huge success, the festival sold out. It was however raided by the Uganda police on the second day 9th December 2017 . The Festival was later completed on 28th and 29th December 2017 but held in private spaces and with only trusted persons invited.

News story about the raid from Human Rights Watch.

Learn more about this important festival and their determination to persevere in a hostile here: http://www.queerkiff.com/home/

The Sausage screens at Deep Trash in the Underworld at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club in London on Saturday October 21, 2017.

“Deep Trash is back with a reincarnation of a to-die-for night of live art! Punk witches, cruising and cursing, afro-futurist Voodoo, leaky rituals, feminist sigil magick, queer zombies, camp vampires, anti-capitalist hell-raising, blood-spilling… and many other supernatural experiences!

Deep Trash is a one night only exhibition-cum-performance-club-night featuring live performances, installations, artworks, visuals and videos spread over 3 floors by 40 artists in East London’s Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club.”

More info

We are thrilled to be exhibiting five felt banners related to the Fairy Fantastic! story Better Out Than In in Push Comes to Shove at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.  The exhibition is a  cross-disciplinary collaboration between SMoCA and ASU Intermedia Professor Muriel Magenta, Ph.D., Push Comes to Shove: Women and Power (October 1, 2016 – January 8, 2017) aims to use art as a critical catalyst in rethinking and transforming the advancement of women.

The exhibition will feature 19 artists whose works deal with the themes and issues of how women exercise and think about power. The exhibition is grounded by the experiences of five women who have held positions of great leadership: Kyrsten Sinema, U.S. congresswoman, 9^th District, Ariz.; Rebecca White Berch, former chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court; Barbara Barrett, international businesswoman, former U.S. ambassador to Finland and namesake of ASU’s Barrett Honors College; Diane Enos, former president of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community; and Gloria Feldt, Co-Founder & President of Take The Lead, activist, former CEO of Planned Parenthood and faculty member of the ASU School of Social Transformation.

Trans*studies is a 4-day international academic conference from September 7th – 10th at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Mauro Cabral and Sandy Stone will give keynote talks and international panelists will address topics such as transgender issues, sex/gender variance, gender nonconformity, and diverse embodiments - as well as work that draws upon trans* methodologies to inform research in other areas of inquiry. The Sausage, along with our videos, Eric Moe’s Idyll and Robot Love will screen in the Gallagher Theater at 2:30 on Saturday, September 10th.

Fairy Fantastic! has again been awarded a grant from The Frank-Ratchye Fund for Art @ the Frontier. The STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University administers the Frank-Ratchye Fund for Art @ the Frontier (FRFAF): an endowment to encourage the creation of innovative artworks by the faculty, students and staff of Carnegie Mellon University. With this fund, the STUDIO seeks to develop a cache of groundbreaking projects created at CMU - works that can be described as “thinking at the edges” of the intersection of disciplines. We are grateful for their support!

The Sausage will play at the Red Rooster Theater in Sydney, Australia during the Sydney Transgender International Film Festival taking place December 2 & 9, 2015.