Christina Oyawale: Punk Care Commons

Punk Care Commons is an image-based installation grounded in a history of queer punk anti-aesthetics. Throughout the exhibition, the notion of the expanded zine is deployed to aid in (re)shaping our understandings of traditional and hierarchical forms of intimacy. The exhibition focuses on weaving together past and present histories of anarchic communities (e.g., Black, queer, punk rock, etc.) engaged in family abolition—a Marxist feminist framework seeking avenues of equitable relations through the communalization of care.

The physical installation functions as a commons: a gathering space for punks, queers, and social deviants to convene in their desire to destabilize capitalism’s reliance on the nuclear family. Punk Care Commons asks viewers to question how collective “mothering,” the communal nature of the mosh pit, food and housing security, safe drug supply, and sexual pleasure can allow us to dream up a post-capitalist world.

Christina Oyawale is a queer disabled interdisciplinary image artist, curator, and writer from Toronto, currently based in Winnipeg. Their practice maintains an autotheoretical approach with ties to leftist political economy, social identity theory, and cultural studies. This is reflected in their work through the Debordian technique of détournement—appropriating image archives and found text for propagandistic intent. Their goal is to make present the inherent absurdity and spectacle attached to hegemonic social structures such as the family, whiteness, and heteronormativity. Their work continues to be influenced by punk culture, the failures of Occupy Wall Street, 2010s Tumblr, and anti-aesthetics.

Christina has exhibited, curated, and written works for galleries and publications such as Gallery 44, esse arts + opinions, and C Magazine. They are pursuing their MFA at the University of Manitoba and hold a BFA in Photography with a minor in Music and Culture from Toronto Metropolitan University.