Presented at Future Tenant downtown Pittsburgh, Guns vs. Butter is a new exhibition of anti-war graphics that brings together the contemporary print work of the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative alongside posters from the historical collection housed in the Interference Archive.

I received info about this exhibition on the “queer-events” list, and it got me thinking about the question: is war a queer issue? I hope you think about the question and post your ideas as comments to the blog post.

War is, at the root of it, a power-over struggle for dominance, and that power0over modality is frequently assigned to a patriarchal hierarchical structure of control. Even a civil war, is a way by a resistance to the status quo power for a release from the current dominance by those in control. And we generally see war as having a winner and a loser- another patriarchal modality. In that sense, war is a very queer issue because by applying queer and feminist approaches to conflict, peace can be reached in ways other than by a winning a war. Perhaps, Peace is a queer issue rather than War being a queer issue?

Additionally, War is a queer issue in that as queer people, our interests go far beyond gay issues. Certainly non-discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression is important, but it is important precisely because it is a Civil Rights issue. We, gay, lesbian, bi, trans, and queer folks care about many things, and we bring to the table important ideas and perspectives, which make any issue “our” issue too.

However, there isn’t only one queer viewpoint or perspective towards war or towards most anything else, right? What do you think?

via Justseeds: Blog: Guns vs. Butter exhibition Pittsburgh.