M97 Allyson Mitchell

Deep Lez (2009)

‘Deep Lez’ is a concept devised by the Canadian artist Allyson Mitchell (b. 1967) that uses the history of radical lesbian feminism to address the state of contemporary culture. It has been described by the academic Elizabeth Freeman in her book Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories (2010) as ‘a catchphrase cum artistic vision cum political movement’, and certainly the philosophy of Deep Lez has informed Mitchell’s art, which has included a giant crocheted vagina installation, and primeval she-beasts fabricated from fur and yarn using traditional craft techniques like appliqué.

The ‘Deep Lez’ manifesto was originally constructed out of yarn and plastic in 2003, before being photographed and distributed as a poster in 2004. This version, which expands on that first draft, was written in 2009 and published in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies in 2011. In it Mitchell uses Deep Lez as a way of critiquing ‘third-wave’ feminism (which is chiefly defined by the inclusion of queer and non-white women, whose particular agendas had hitherto been ignored) and ensuring that radical lesbian and bi voices of the past are not lost in the current ‘muddied-up’ discourse but can still contribute to the formulation of future feminist strategy. To this end, in 2010 Mitchell set up the Feminist Art Gallery (FAG) in Toronto, in conjunction with the artist Deirdre Logue, as a platform for feminist and queer thinking.

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Deep Lez is an experiment, a process, an aesthetic and a blend of theory and practice. Deep Lez is right this minute and it is rooted in herstories and theories that came before. It takes the most relevant and capable ideas and uses them as tools to create new ways of thinking, while simultaneously clinging to more radical politics that have already happened but definitely aren’t over yet. Part of the deep of Deep Lez is about commitment, staying power, and significance. Part of the deep of Deep Lez is about philosophies and theories, as in, ‘Wow man, that’s deep.’

Deep Lez uses cafeteria-style mixings of craft, context, food, direct action and human connections to maintain radical dyke politics and resistant strategies. Part quilting bee, part public relations campaign, and part collective self-care, Deep Lez seeks to map out the connections between the second position feminisms that have sustained radical lesbian politics and the other feminist/queer, anti-racist, critical disability and trans politics that look to unpack many of the concepts upon which those radical politics have been developed. These political positions have set forth a host of important critiques about radical lesbianisms as they have historically unfolded, and look to provide correctives in this regard. Unfortunately, this is often accomplished through the wholesale dismissal of a radical lesbian practice and identification. Deep Lez was coined to acknowledge the urgent need to develop inclusive liberatory feminisms while examining the strategic benefits of maintaining some components of a radical lesbian theory and practice in dreaming big queer worlds. This project is carefully situated not to hold on to history, but rather to examine how we might cull what is useful from lesbian herstories to redefine contemporary urban lesbian/queer/trans existence. In so doing, ‘lesbian’ is resurrected as a potential site of radical identification, rather than one of de-politicized apathy or erasure.

Deep Lez originally began as a cultural project of mine, largely informing my art practice. I make lesbian feminist monsters using abandoned domestic handicraft. This has meant the creation of giant 3D sasquatch ladies, room-size vagina dentatas, a FAG feminist art gallery and a lesbian feminist hell house. The objects and environments that I create are about articulating some of the ideas and imaginings from second-wave feminisms that were so foundational to me, while still remaining committed to an inclusive queer theory and practice that continue to keep me alive.

In a short time, this idea grew beyond my own practice, and took hold among a variety of local and international communities. For example, the language of Deep Lez was adopted by some folks at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival who lobbied for trans inclusion and supported Camp Trans. Here, Deep Lez is mobilized to move radical lesbianism and identification with, or allegiance to, trans communities out of the realm of either/or and into the space of and/both – as encouraged by bell hooks.

A Deep Lez art exhibition was mounted in San Francisco, in which lesbian identification was explored as a relevant and strategic site of young queer urban politics. Given the growth of this idea, I write and expand on the ideas of Deep Lez with this statement.

Deep Lez is meant to be a point of departure for me to start thinking about my politics and what is important to me and my communities. Deep Lez is meant to be a macraméed conceptual tangle for people to work through how they integrate art into their politics and how they live their lives, and continue to get fired up about ideas. Deep Lez can offer alternative ways of imagining the world and who we are. It is meant to be passed hand-to-hand from crafter to filmmaker to academic to students to teachers to leaders and back again. My wish is that it permeates and also loosens things up.

Deep Lez is not meant to become its own dogma but to encourage thinking about new/old feminist and dyke strategic positions. Every Deep Lez text, installation, manifesto and potluck offering is different because it is contingent on the contributions and participations of many, and also because it is accumulating and discarding as it goes. We can band together through Deep Lez to imagine and realize our way out of this dysfunctional habitat to create ecologies, policies, and styles without war, poverty, violence and waste.

Deep Lez is the volunteer, the workshop coordinator, the curator, the consumer, the first initiated and the instigator – anyone who gets intrigued by this bell-bottomed fat-assed catch all: whether they are dykes or not, they are still Deep Lez.

Signed in solidarity for a new kind of sisterhood that isn’t based on gender and privilege and a new kind of brotherhood that isn’t based on rape and pillage.