Queer Spirit Over Orlando

Bruce describes his reaction to the Orlando nightclub shooting of 2016, which led him to create 'Queer Spirit Over Orlando', an artwork 'intended for healing'.

Duration 01:50

 

Visit Bruce’s website to see his art in detail.

Queer Spirit Over Orlando (2016) by Bruce Rimell shows a figure rising over a cityscape

Queer Spirit Over Orlando (2016) by Bruce Rimell

TRANSCRIPT

And then in 2016, someone walked into a night club in Orlando and shot 50 queer people. And of course it hit the world really hard, and I thought I would respond to that with a piece that I call 'Queer Spirit Over Orlando'. It was intended for healing, but it also expresses adequately... my holistic sense of who this queer, pristine jewel within, what they... cause it's non-gendered, what they look like. and feel like, within me.

Relevant to that is a selfie I took about three or four days later. It's a picture of me shirtless, with the words ‘queer as fuck’ on my chest. and I think at this point, the rebellious ‘fuck you world’ kind of came back, because I was like... I think for me, and I'm mindful of my privilege living where I am, white cis-gender, mostly male. I'm very conscious of my privilege there. For me, the call of Orlando was to be more gay. More lesbian. More bisexual. More transgender. More queer. More intersex. More asexual. More of what we are, fearlessly. and if someone wants to shoot me in the face because of it, fuck it. I will have lived without fear. And that's really now, so it's like... Orlando brought back my teenage, 'yeah, fuck the world' kind of thing, you know it brought it back.