Art, truth offer resistance in this dangerous time

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This article was published 01/02/2025 (595 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Fix your hearts or die.”

This quote from visionary filmmaker David Lynch has been everywhere in the weeks since his death. In articles. In social media posts. In photos of it spray-painted on urban canvases.

The quote comes from a scene in Twin Peaks, when FBI deputy director Gordon Cole, played by Lynch, is addressing DEA agent Denise Bryson, a transgender character played by David Duchovny. “When you became Denise, I told all of your colleagues, those clown comics, to fix their hearts or die.”

This powerful, five-word message — amended a little to become a slogan — has taken on new resonance in this current political climate, when trans rights are under threat in the United States and anti-LGBTTQ+ rhetoric and legislation are on the rise globally.

“Fix your heart or die” is not a threat, exactly. It’s a warning. A warning that if one doesn’t open and soften one’s heart — to love and acceptance, to new ideas and perspectives — it will wither and shrivel up into a hard, hateful little thing.

I thought about that quote a lot while wandering through Love in a Dangerous Time, a new exhibition at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights about Canada’s LGBT Purge. From the 1950s to the 1990s, the Government of Canada systematically investigated, harassed and fired more than 9,000 LGBTTQ+ members of the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP and the federal public service.

They were outed to their families. They were subjected to invasive tests and questions. They were humiliated and ostracized and disciplined. Many Purge survivors suffered from anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse. Some died by suicide.

This, I cannot stress enough, is very recent Canadian history. Imagine being so bigoted — so dead-hearted — as to surveil and fire people, many of whom had volunteered to serve their country, for the “crime” of loving who they loved.

I also thought a lot about that Lynch quote because Lynch was a capital-A Artist and Love in a Dangerous Time has a strong art component.

The CMHR commissioned two pieces for the exhibition from Winnipeg artists who belong to the LGBTTQ+ community: filmmaker Noam Gonick (Hey, Happy!) and performance artists Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan (Lesbian National Parks and Services).

Gonick’s The Regulation of Desire is a ballet film that tells the story of the Purge through seven vignettes; Dempsey and Millan’s The Fruit Machine: A Space Opera is a video installation that looks at vintage advertising and pop culture messaging — often beamed in from the TV — that reinforced the idea that heterosexuality and a rigid gender binary were “normal” and “good,” leaving the strong impression that if you didn’t identify as either, you were “abnormal” and “bad.”

Both are pieces well worth spending time with if you go to the exhibit. Which you should. Art offers a different entry point into difficult subject matter — particularly in a museum context. Texts and artifacts are obviously powerful educational tools that can open minds. But art — art has a unique ability to open both minds and hearts.

The Purge could happen again. It is happening again. This week, as the finishing touches were completed on this exhibition at the CMHR, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order barring trans people from serving in the military.

It’s hard not to feel helpless. But there’s lots that’s inspiring about Love in a Dangerous Time, too.

In the early 1990s, a woman named Michelle Douglas used the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to sue the CAF for her dismissal as part of the Purge — and won. A class-action suit followed later, with more survivors coming forward and taking collective action.

There are always things we can do. We can make art that changes culture, that fixes hearts. We can create museum exhibits at national institutions that tell the truth.

Another artist’s line comes to mind, from Lovers in a Dangerous Time, the Bruce Cockburn song that inspired the exhibition’s title — though I prefer the Barenaked Ladies’ version.

“You gotta kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.”

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com