Hot Topic - An Interview with Kirsten Mccrea

An interview with Kirsten McCrea creator and author of Hot Topic: Portraits of 20th Century Feminists new this month at Come As You Are!

So Kirsten, you've just got your project Hot Topic published by Maison Kasini in the form of the book "Hot Topic: Portraits in 20th Century Feminists," featuring oil-based portraits of all the feminist named in the Le Tigre's infamous "Hot Topic" song. What was your interest in producing such a project?

Yeah, it's so exciting to have the project collected into a book! It's just really nice to be able to flip through and see all of the images alongside bios of these amazing people.

"Hot Topic" has been one of my favourite songs for a long time, but this isn't a fan piece.

The goal of the project was to engage in a form of activism that was not critical of dominant culture, but instead celebratory of alternative social movements. The series depicts an informal “who’s who” of feminist icons from the last century, and it's my hope that these paintings will play a small role in preserving the memory of these influential underground figures.

In a world that celebrates manufactured pop stars but forgets the names of suffragists, I wanted to find a way to solidify the memory of the underground superstars whose creativity and ideas have made such a difference to feminists of my generation The paintings are exhibited along with a free ‘zine that includes a short biography of each person, allowing the gallery to act as an environment of dialogue and education as opposed to merely a visual space.

What's your connection with feminism and what does feminism mean to you?

I was raised as a feminist and I've always held feminist values, but it wasn't until I started taking Women's Studies classes that I really started to identify with that word. I was lucky enough to fall in with an amazing group of women who worked together very closely for a few years to start a Women's Centre at the University of Alberta and bring more feminist programming and events to Edmonton. We held a menstrual cabaret, we made cunt cookies, we brought amazing people like Inga Muscio and Norman Nawrawki to speak, we held tons of workshops, we stormed bad corporate "women's conventions" that were sponsored by Botox... Basically we had a lot of fun for a few years.

I think that feminism is about the obvious goals of fighting for equality in both the public and private spheres, but it's also about creating spaces where people can be themselves and have a good time. Making 'cunt cookies' isn't going to change the world the same way that fighting for better access to abortion will, but it's really great to have a chance to be silly and celebrate the things you like...plus one of my favourite memories of the last decade is taking the batch of vegan cunt cookies out of the oven to horrified gasps as we realized that the labia had all melted all over the pan into a weird mass, leaving a sea of glitter clits everywhere.

This project is evidently a tracing of underground feminist lineage, something even in this age of information bombardment is constantly being lost. How do you think we are to keep such lineage going?

That's why I feel projects like this are so important. We aren't going to keep our lineage unless we preserve it ourselves! Even in this age of the internet, there were a few people who were really hard to track down. DJ Kuttin' Kandy and Tami Hart (turns out their names were misspelled in the lyrics) are two examples. Krysal Wakem (rumoured to be the daughter of someone who worked on their album) was another.

The dominant culture is not interested in these people and is not going to preserve their memory. We have to do that ourselves. I want to make a follow-up series that will solicit suggestions of who to paint from others, because I am sure that there are hundreds of amazing feminists out there doing shit cool stuff who most of us have never - and maybe will never - hear of. Things like this song and this painting project are kind of like a feminist game of telephone, where you pass the names along and hope that they are remembered.

Though there are several renowned feminists named in the Hot Topic song, several of them are pretty unknown, even to feminist circles. As young feminists grow up trying to "reinvent the wheel," as they say, what is the importance of knowing those whose portraits you have painted?

That's so true! I only knew who maybe half the people were when I started painting the series. It was really great learning about everyone else, because this is seriously a great list of people. There are musicians, writers, athletes, activists, actors, artists...you name it. And they have all made serious cultural contributions to our society, but are under-recognized for it.

It's why I made the 'zine that has a short bio on each person, because I think it's important to not just have the face, but also information about each person, available to the gallery-goers. One of the best things about the book is that it includes a much longer bio of each person, written by Misty Erikson of Her Circle EZine, an online gallery that showed the series last year.

What did you learn about your lineage throughout this process?

Hmmm, good question. I think I developed a greater awareness of where my ideas as an artist come from. I suspect that I was pretty influenced by a lot of these people, but since they don't get much credit or recognition I wasn't aware of the influence. I have become downright obsessed with patterning in the last few years, and it was a real joy to discover the work of Yayoi Kusama through my investigation of the bios of the people in the song. She is a devout pattern-er, one of the first female artists to leave Japan after the Second World War and a total badass who staged amazing performances and interventions in NYC. She and Yoko Ono (who I also learned more about thanks to Hot Topic) are, I think, far more influential to the way we now make art than they are ever given credit for. They really made huge leaps in the move towards performance and installation-based art, and in the move towards art as idea instead of object. But they're not in the canon, despite the fact that their male contemporaries (who they worked alongside) are. It's bullshit.

Where there any particular feminists whose portraits you painted that you felt especially connected to?

Yayoi Kusama, Yoko Ono, and Leslie Feinberg are probably my favourites. I had read Leslie's academic writings and seen him speak, but painting the series made me finally pick up Stone Butch Blues, which is one of the best and - I think - most important books I have ever read. We're speaking about history here, and that book does an absolutely amazing job of charting a history that is undocumented and absolutely heartbreaking. The book will probably make you angry, and it will make you cry, but it will also make you really excited about how far we've come and will make you want to keep fighting for social change! If you haven't read it, seriously - go NOW and get a copy! Why are you still reading this? I said GO NOW.

If you were to create a new song or series of portraits of feminists, who would you include?

I hinted at this above. I have some thoughts, but if (more like when) I create a follow-up, I am going to let other people tell me who I should include. Stay tuned to my website (www.hellokirsten.com) for announcements of when this idea will come to fruition. Hopefully within the next year or two.

What other projects have you on the go?

I run Papirmasse, an affordable art subscription that sends a monthly print with art on the front and writing on the back to people all over the world for the incredible price of $5 a month (including postage!). It's all about getting contemporary art out into the world so that people can engage with it on a regular basis, and removing income as a barrier to being able to own art. (www.papirmasse.com)

I am also about to do a residency at SparkBox Studios, and am excited to have the chance to return to painting and drawing, which I haven't had much time for lately. I have been painting with En Masse and making wheatpaste collages with Cease, and participating in lots of shows and pop-up print shops. Doing collaborative work is great, but having time to make only my own work for a while will be really nice too.

Hot Topic - An Interview with Kirsten Mccrea

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