James Chantry: Queering the Fens

This second of two episodes produced by Outside/rs 2022, themed around Vision, Perception and Outside/rs looks gets stuck in the watery fenlands of the East Midlands, travels through time and speculates on queer futures.Can art, and particular use of media, be a speculative mode of engaging with utopian models of queer reproduction and community? In supernatural literature and folklore there are clear themes of coded queer relationships, identity and the manifestation of spectral beings. In Lincolnshire Fenland folklore, the Tiddy Mun, for example reclaim(ed) the land and waterways for displaced people, and can be interpreted as queer. James Chantry shares their creative practice, which involves video, sound, performance, drawing, animation and sculpture, each a mode of queer reproduction. Through this work they challenge gender expectations and inner colonialism, as well as propose theories of queer reproductive and social futurity.*Contributors: James Chantry (he/they) is an artist and PhD researcher at De Montfort University, Leicester, in Fine Art by practice. Their research explores the links between the supernatural and queer identity, in specific liminal geographic locations, such as the fens, marsh and edgelands. www.jameschantry.co.uk *Outside/rs 2022: https://outsiders2022.wordpress.com/[email protected]@outsiders2022*The Technecast:technecast.wixsite.com/listen - [email protected] - @technecastThe Technecast is funded by the Techne AHRC-DTP.Episode presented and edited by Joe Jukes. @jsdjukes Cover Image: Still, taken from Darklins, James Chantry, 2021.Royalty free music generously shared by Steve Oxen. FesliyanStudios.com