CHAPEL

[M] Dudeck, PhD, (born in Winnipeg, 1984) is an artist and cultural engineer who invents their own queer religion as art. Their project, called RELIGIONVIRUS, has been performed, exhibited, screened and published in over thirty countries worldwide. Their work as an artist and scholar of religion examines the artistic construction of belief systems, using worldbuilding mechanisms of speculative fiction to queer divinity into form. They produce ritual performances, ceremonial techno-sermons, museological installations of invented artifacts, originally composed psalms, scriptures and are currently working on a VR temple. They recently completed a PhD at the intersection of art and religion at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, entitled Make Belief: The Art of Inventing Religions, to be published in Fall 2024, alongside Xenotheology, the first large scale publication on their work, by Black Dog Press (London).

In CHAPEL, commissioned by GAP for its 25th anniversary, the artist will perform over three days inside a purpose-built temple installation. Members of the public are invited to enter into the process and witness as [M] illustrates their own invented scriptures in a durational neo-monastic performance in an immersive tetrahedron altarpiece. Over the duration of three nights, Dudeck will illuminate the foundational myths of their ancient queer spirituality. Originally composed and methodically illustrated queer iconographies produced in collaboration with Seth Woodyard frame and surround Dudeck’s hermetic ritual, while an immersive soundtrack produced in collaboration with Brandon Michael narrates the cosmogony and produces a sonic shrine. An augmented reality (AR) image produced in collaboration with Winnipeg-based Flipside XR invites participants to experience a virtual invocation of RELIGIONVIRUS on their smartphones via a QR code, and Dudeck’s INVENT YOUR OWN RELIGION workbook is provided for those willing to explore the creative implications of producing their own belief systems.

Dudeck’s INVENT YOUR OWN RELIGION workbook is provided for those willing to explore the creative implications of producing their own belief systems. GAP as a venue reminds us of the work gay artists such as Keith Haring have done in pairing hip hop aesthetics with sexuality. On its 25th anniversary, GAP is proud to be an ally and a beacon for queer youth who wish to express their own desires with art. Embracing the spectacle of ritual, this work’s launch in Winnipeg is only the first stop on a planned multi-year global tour (followed by Scotland, Germany, Korea and Japan) producing queer CHAPELS in public spaces, including shopping centres, sacred sites, places of commerce, festivals, galleries and museums. The project seeks to initiate members of the public into new mutant forms of queer divinity, and by fabricating their queer religion live, Dudeck invites members of the public to imagine producing their own religions and provides a contemplative space to game-test new beliefs in the Graffiti Gallery Temple.

Curator Noam Gonick says: “Since being a youth instructor at Graffiti Art Gallery, [M] Dudeck has gone on to perform and exhibit around the world, disseminating the possibilities of queer mysticism. Now based largely in Europe, Dudeck has returned to the the old pickle factory that is GAP to reconvene with the community that spawned them.”