Sarah Ivanco works to promote the diversity of queer bodies, sexuality and sensuality. Her medium of choice? A multimedia art zine.
In November, the Ottawa Arts Council (OAC) awarded micro-grants to support the projects of 10 local artists. Through disbursing $5,000 amongst recipients, this first-time initiative aims to uplift artists who inspire the local creative community and give back to the city through their projects.
“We learned that there were a lot of barriers in securing funding to support artists and their work,” said Nicole Milne, executive director of the OAC. “It really is a story about artists supporting artists in our community.”
Among the micro-grant recipients was Carleton neuroscience alum Ivanco, whose project is a self-published zine about the variety of relationships and intimacy within the queer community.
A zine is a small-circulation magazine that’s often photocopied and features collages.
Ivanco’s zine submission process runs from January to March 31 and is being conducted through Ivanco’s Instagram. Publication is set to take place in June.
“I’ll be putting out an open call to local Ottawa artists, specifically queer artists, to submit literary or visual arts. It’s really going to range from poetry to photography, to paintings, to collages, to articles [and] short stories – whatever people want to submit,” Ivanco said.
“I was awarded $450 from the Arts Council and I’m going to be using it to help with contributing to stipends as well as production costs and hopefully paying myself a little for curating and editing,” Ivanco said.
According to Ivanco, there is no “catch-all” label when it comes to queer sexuality.
“My hope for it is to just normalize and bring representation to queer folks in Ottawa,” they said.
She added the 2SLGBTQ+ community is not monolithic.
“My experiences as a queer-presenting individual is going to be completely different than someone who is trans and masc,” Ivanco said.
According to sexologists, the 2SLGBTQ+ community is commonly characterized as the villain in pop culture. Ivanco said they want to challenge these media portrayals with their zine and widen the visible scope of queer bodies.
“When [queer presenting characters] are villainized they’re seen as not very sensual,” they said. “Either they’re seen as hypersexualized, but they never actually get with anyone or they’re seen as completely asexual – which is also a part of the experience of being queer or that umbrella.”
Ivanco said she wants her zine to provide distinction from that misrepresentation, making queer people feel recognized beyond one muddied depiction.
“I grew up from a Catholic background, so the idea of queer sex and queer bodies was not talked about a lot when I was growing up,” they said. “It’s nice that I now have a platform to be able to talk about those things.”
Ivanco added she was honoured to receive the OAC micro-grant.
“The funding means the world to me. As an emerging artist it makes me feel as though people have faith in my vision and my ability to create something beautiful,” Ivanco said. “The fact that I get to do it on queer lived experience just makes it that much more special.”
Sylvia Dreaver, one of the jurors responsible for selecting the OAC micro-grant recipients, said she appreciates the communal recognition accompanying zines.
“I love the fact that zines are becoming more of an established art form — people are taking it seriously,” Dreaver said. “They are becoming a very useful form of art and a way of advocacy and resistance.”
The OAC also echoed the possibility contained in Ivanco’s zine.
“This support to Sarah also offers support to other artists in our community just by the creation of her idea and her process,” Milne said.
With Ivanco’s zine in progress and a second year of OAC’s micro-grant fundraising underway, Ivanco said they hope the diverse collective of voices in Ottawa will be heard.
Featured image provided by Sarah Ivanco.
