Brazen

Brazen Bandits is a trans artist collective calling on co-conspirators to creative collaboration. The Bandits have transformed SPACE’s 534 Congress Street Gallery into an exhibition, performance, and community space through the month of January. As our environment becomes more openly hostile for trans and queer people, this is a space for reprieve, for connection, for making art, for raising our voices and spirits toward change.

Schedule of events

Friday, January 3, 5-8 pm
First Friday Gallery Opening

Saturday, January 4, 3-4 pm
Artists Talk

Sunday, January 12, 12-3 pm
Body As Revolution: Creative Collaboration Workshop

Sunday, January 19, 1-2:30 pm
Conspiring For Our Survival: A Panel on Organizing in Maine

Monday, January 20, 6 pm
Let Me Hold That For You, performance by Sampson Spadafore and Ian-Meredythe Dehne Lindsey

Saturday, January 25, 2-4 pm
Queer Artists Support Group

Saturday, January 25, 5-7 pm
Closing Potluck

Artist statement

Across different media, Boots Shertzer (they/he), Sampson Spadafore (they/them), and Hale Linnet (they/them) are carving out authenticity; pursuing transformation despite cultural norms, mounting intolerance, and extremism. The trans body exemplifies revolution and liberation, and we believe art acts as a tool for both individual and collective excavation. Through the lens of the trans experience, Brazen Bandits use creative practices to seek the truest versions of themselves in hopes of using that knowledge as a foundation for a different world. Our work challenges and invites viewers to become co-conspirators, to climb down into the ache with us, and seek connection across difference. 

Join us conspiring creatives! Flamboyant hunks in rapture! This space is yours. Sit and make art with us. Seek. Explore. Discover. Breathe.