This particular collection of short animations stems from my personal experience of growing up in a strictly gender segregated society, with a body and personality that does not particularly align with the binary expectations imposed on them. In my post-immigration era, I still question what boundaries I am allowed to push around, what is still considered ‘non-conforming’, and what is an acceptable gender expression in Finland.
While animation is rarely expected (or regarded) to be a serious medium of artistic discourse, I am very happy to come across films and video arts that help me facilitate a discourse of gender identities, sexualities, and exactly what discomforts the heteronormativity of contemporary times. I am honored to bring together this collection of animations, produced in their respective contexts, embodying the social reality of each locality.
The project was made possible by the collaboration of the amazing working group:
Dawnlyali (she/her)
Dawnlyali is a visual artist and designer working primarily in Animation. Driven by a long-standing passion for visual storytelling, her practice with art, story, and animation span on multiple platforms including TV series, short film, documentary, commercial, game and VR experience.
katekuler (they/she)
Kate Kuler is an animation director, activist and researcher. They have an MA from Re:Anima EMJMD, and have worked as an independent audiovisual artist and teacher since 2018. They work from their interest in the intersections of animation and memory, and critical approach to the systems of marginalisation. Currently, their main focus is on autoethnographic methods and non-linear narratives in animation.
YiChin (she/her)
YiChin is a Taiwan-born visual artist and filmmaker. She focuses on finding ways to reflect her life experience and observations of the world. With the combination of under camera animation, mixed materials techniques and analog films, she creates flowing visuals and explores the possibilities of expressing emotion in different means.
Kiss my ARS
Kiss my ARS is a queer artist-run workspace & DIY gallery founded in September 2024 by Kaisla Kyyhkynen (she/they), Leik Silvestrini (they) & Vilma Määttänen (she). We are located in Kumpula, and dedicated to uplift LGBTQIA+ artists and activists.
Our work ethics are fueled by spontaneity, experimentality, play, care, love and co-dreaming, often manifesting in sudden series of events of all and any sorts, in an attempt of being an antidote to an art scene that we experience as cold, exclusive and self-centered (and tbh quite often bland af).
Kiss my ARS is run voluntarily without funding (often we joke that Kiss my ARS is a Kela-funded art space, although it is actually not a joke), with help and support from friends, neighbors and people gathered along the way.