Arjun Lal's Queer Gardens
July 8-August 15
Closing ceremony Tuesday, August 15, 6-8pm
The Khyber Centre for the Arts, 1880 Hollis Street
A rainbow filled window-front is nothing unusual this time of year, but the rainbows in one Hollis street window are not your standard Pride fare.
In Arjun Lal’s
Queer Gardens, the current exhibition in the Khyber’s By the Sea Window Gallery, the gallery’s windowsill is lined with square terracotta pots, each painted with a pride rainbow and numbered 1 /30. Coinciding with 30 years of Pride in Halifax, Lal has created 30 planter boxes, which he will gift to 30 queer community members and organizations at the closing ceremony on August 15.
“Pride is divisive, it is beautiful, it is political, and it has the capacity to connect across communities, intersections, politics, and identities” writes Lal in the
Queer Gardens press release.
By thinking outside of the official Pride celebrations, Lal hopes that the plants grown in these planters—this alternative community garden—help members cultivate their own sense of Pride and celebrate growth in queer communities.