Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan

rdf:langString Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan

rdf:langString Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan are a Canadian performance art duo who, since 1989, have collaborated on performances, films, videos, publications and public art projects. Both out lesbians, Dempsey and Millan collaborate most commonly on humorous performances addressing lesbian and feminist themes in a variety of media, including film, video and live performance poetry. Dempsey and Millan are based out of Winnipeg, and have toured and performed worldwide. Their work has been featured in four retrospectives. Their most well-known works are the music video "We're Talking Vulva" (a segment of movie Five Feminist Minutes), the performance video "What Does a Lesbian Look Like?", which was in regular rotation on MuchMusic in the 1990s and was featured on the spoken word poetry compilation album Word Up. They are widely known as the Lesbian Rangers of Lesbian National Parks and Services. Their use of costumes and props in narrative skits enable them to make performance parodies of what is officially sanctioned as normal and legitimate. In the early 2020s they were involved in the design of Thunderhead, which was announced in March 2022 as the winning design proposal for the new LGBTQ2+ National Monument in Ottawa.