Open File – July 22, 2011
In Queeriodic Table, what element(s) are you?
By Peter Tupper
“People have sat down and interacted with the
[Queeriodic] Table and cried because they found themselves. They found a word that they didn’t know existed and said, ‘That’s me!’ It’s very powerful,” says Jen Crothers.
Crothers, a Vancouver-based filmmaker and artist, created the table alongside Kona, a Vancouver-based producer of sex-positive events, as a multimedia project designed to educate and provoke thought about queer sexualities.
Laid out like the periodic table of elements, the Queeriodic Table lists 112 terms for various queer identities and practices in ten different categories. Some of the words are familiar, with “love” taking the place of hydrogen, the most basic of elements. Others are less well known, such as woofy (“attractive” in the Bear subculture of gay men), zami (a Carribean term for a black lesbian), or ginger beer (Cockney rhyming slang for queer).
Kona says she first conceived the idea when she saw a periodic table project on the Internet.
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