QUEER ELDERS SPEAK: quilting the progression of Queer rights in Canada

THE PROJECT OUTLINE ...

I plan to make 12 quilts foregrounding and honouring Queer history as told by 34 queer elders, a host of Supreme Court decisions, and a number of pieces of federal legislation. These quilts will feature videos, photographs, and audio from both the interviews with Queer elders as well as archival data from legislation and major court decisions. The quilts will be showcased first in Picton, ON, then throughout Queer, quilting, and arts organizations across Canada. During the interview phase, I will host workshops that blend teaching textile-arts skills and Queer history. 

As a gay man born in 1950, I have lived Canadian Queer history. Growing up during a time when homosexuality was both criminalized and socially condemned, I have seen remarkable progress. Yet, I remain acutely aware of the fragility of these advancements. Hate and fear still simmer just beneath the surface.

Queer history lives in stories and telling these stories is vital to many audiences. For Queer folk, they remind us of both our progress and the work still ahead. For young people, they fill the gaps left by the absence of Queer history in schools. For heterosexual audiences, they provide insight into lives lived on their periphery. For new Canadians, they reinforce national values of inclusion and equity.

Queer elders have lived this history. This project will collect their experiences, organize them within historical legal decisions and legislative acts, and present them through twelve innovative textile-based art pieces: quilts.

In 2025, I will travel Canada to interview 34 Queer elders, from all provinces and territories, focusing on the years when legal rights for Queers were developing. I’ll record these interviews in settings familiar and comfortable for the elders. I hope to collect stories from the full spectrum of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. Confidentiality agreements will be tailored to individual needs.

As a 70-something gay man, I share a lived history with these elders, facilitating more candid and meaningful conversations. Participants will have the opportunity to review and approve their transcripts before finalization.

During my travels, I will visit quilt guilds, shops, and Queer groups in at least twelve communities to give lectures and host workshops. These sessions will highlight this project and my recent quilts while promoting quilt-making as an innovative art form. Workshops will teach basic and advanced quilting techniques using patterns from the Canadian Quilters’ Association’s 2025 Queer-themed Quilt Along, ‘True Colours’. The quilts created will be donated to support 2SLGBTQ+ individuals and organizations. Throughout the project, I will document the process on Instagram, YouTube, and my website to engage audiences and build interest.

Meaningful partnerships will ensure the success of this project. This includes: Susan Armstrong, a Queer trauma therapist and critical incident debriefer, to support me and participants through this project; David Rendall, a Picton filmmaker, to include QR codes in the quilts that link to audio-video segments of the storytelling as well as a short film based on the audio-visual in the quilts for the exhibit; Taylor Stocks, a trans PhD candidate and project administrator, who will set up networks with Queer organizations, engage in archival research, review transcripts, and maintain structure for the overall project. I also have enthusiastic expressions of interest from guilds/shops in Vancouver, Lethbridge, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Sudbury, Ottawa, Kitchener/Waterloo, Montreal, Moncton, Charlottetown, Halifax, and St. John’s. An Advisory Committee will be set up to manage these partnerships. 

Queer history is frequently recorded through stories about riots, raids, and protests. This project will record our history using innovative quilts that highlight eleven Supreme Court decisions and legislative acts of Parliament that advanced Queer rights. A twelfth quilt will focus on the 1980s, when our community organized to look after each other and advance our own rights.

While rooted in quilting traditions, the pieces I will create for this project will push boundaries. These quilts will be textile-based, immersive, multimedia quilted wall hangings incorporating 3D elements, QR codes linking to audiovisual material, and innovative techniques including fabric ‘sticky notes’ and printed newspaper clippings and more. Inspired by the Progress Pride Flag, these quilts will resemble living message boards telling stories collected from Queer elder interviews.

This arts project is essential to capture not only Queer history, particularly from elders before their stories disappear, but to bridge connections between the quilting world and the 2SLGBTQ+ community. At a time when Queer and trans rights are under attack, we need art pieces that reflect survival, empowerment, and change to inspire and support the next generations of Queer activism.