Site 7: Crossing Paths with Diversity
@ Billboard on Sherbrooke Street (south side, just east of Jackson Creek)
Artspace outdoor installation location, June 22 - July 19, 1995.
In this photo from July 2024, Peg Town is standing on a dirt path next to green grass in front of a commercial billboard on Sherbrooke Street. She is looking up at the billboard that is advertising “Comfort. Safety. Long wear.” with a photo of a brown Blundstone ankle boot with a black tread.
Scroll down to see a photo of the billboard art by Winnipeg artist collective Average Good Looks for Artspace in 1995, and a related story written by Peg Town in 2024.
In 1995, Artspace presented the public art installation, “Here’s looking at you!”, by Average Good Looks, at this commercial billboard site in downtown Peterborough.
Average Good Looks was an artist collective in Winnipeg in the 1990s that created photography- and text-based billboard ads in response to homophobic stigma and violence in their city. Their billboards were created to encourage positive thought and discussion about Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Androgynous and Asexual people as vital members of every community.
Artspace’s Artistic Director, Lynn Beavis invited Average Good Looks artists Noreen Stevens and Sheila Spence for a week-long residency in 1995 to develop a community-based project for Peterborough. In my capacity as Communications Coordinator for Artspace and a self-identified queer person, I was keen to curate the project.
I connected the visiting artists with members of the local community through the '“queer grapevine” and supportive groups like the Rainbow Service Organization. Over the course of a few days, we met and talked about our experiences of living in Peterborough, how we were perceived in both positive and negative ways, and we shared a long list of words chosen to proudly describe ourselves.
Noreen Stevens designed the billboard, a white background filled with purple text, with the tagline, “here’s looking at you!”, as affirming recognition of the diversity of language that many 2-SLGBTQQIAA people have chosen and reclaimed in celebration of how they see themselves in community.
When I think about the name Average Good Looks and its allusion to the personal ads that one can find in the back pages of a newsprint magazine like Xtra, I think about what I was looking for in 1995. I wasn’t searching for the love of my life - I had already found her! I was looking for community, and my personal preference was and still is for diversity within that community.
As a proud queer person of 61¾ years, throughout my lifetime I have witnessed, participated in, and benefitted from the 2-SLBTQQIAA community's collective fight for our rights and freedoms. I think the Average Good Looks billboard project was a small but significant part of that collective effort to affect positive change, particularly in Nogojiwanong/Peterborough.
The experience of crossing paths with the artists of Average Good Looks and queer people in this community continues to inspire me to think about the nuanced ways that we self-identify, and how that continues to change as we live our lives, cross paths, and connect with other people.
Scroll down to see a photo of the Average Good Looks billboard on Sherbrooke Street in June/July 1995.
Photo of “here’s looking at you!”, billboard art installation on Sherbrooke Street, Peterborough, June 22-July 19, 1995, by Winnipeg artist collective Average Good Looks in collaboration with 2-SLBTQQIAA community in Nogojiwanong/ Peterborough, and presented by Artspace. The white billboard is filled with lower-case, purple text of 45 words selected to describe diverse identities, followed by the tagline, “here’s looking at you!”
NOTE: the listed phone number is no longer connected to the project.
Reflective Question
In what ways do you see your Self reflected in the art and culture of this community?
Site 1: Crossing Paths with History
Site 2: Crossing Paths with Performance
Site 3: Crossing Paths with Community
Site 4: Crossing Paths with Nogojiwanong
Site 5: Crossing Paths with Gardeners
Site 6: Crossing Paths with Collaboration
Site 7: Crossing Paths with Diversity
Site 8: Crossing Paths with Climate Change
Site 9: Crossing Paths with Infrastructure
Site 10: Crossing Paths with Today and Tomorrow
