Gender Re-Reveal Party: St. Catherine University

 In the fall of 2018, AK Garski collaborated with Dr. Cecilia Konchar Farr’s Literature and Gender Non-Conformity class at St. Catherine University to plan a private party that celebrated trans, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, and LGBTQIA+ students while engaging guests in thoughtful dialogue about gender.

The traditions associated with cis-normative gender reveal parties (such as blue and pink decorations, cake-cutting, and balloon drops) were questioned and reimagined specifically for the celebration of gender non-conforming individuals.

This was the first iteration of Garski’s Gender Re-Reveal social practice artwork, which coincided with Garski coming out publicly as nonbinary.

Gender reveal party poster 8 x 11_AK copy.jpg

Artist Talk and Student Panel Discussion

Providing the opportunity for community dialogue is a crucial component of this social practice project. It allows the community to learn about the experiences of young adults who are gender diverse and/or sexually expansive within an educational, respectful environment. Each year, Garski facilitates a discussion with a panel of student leaders. Afterwards the audience is invited pair up and discuss the following questions:

Describe a time in your life that you behaved (or wanted to behave) in a way that was  considered socially unacceptable for your assigned gender. What was the timeframe and setting of your experience? How did you learn that your behavior was considered unacceptable? How did this experience make you feel and how has it impacted your life moving forward?

Gender Fluid Party Decorations

Over the course of one month, Garski worked with students to create genderfluid party decorations. The decorations were inspired Garski’s painting, It’s A Girl, a representational painting of a balloon that proclaimed the gender identity Garski was assigned at birth. Packed away in storage for many years, the bright pink paint began to chip away, revealing that the balloon was made of silver Mylar. This material is not stereotypically associated with masculinity or femininity. It reflects whatever the viewer projects onto its surface, physically or psychologically. Therefore Mylar was selected as the perfect material from which to make genderfluid party decorations.

Garski worked with the students to generate words and phrases that oppose the standard “It’s a boy!” “Its a girl!” gender reveal party balloon. They hand painted each letter on pieces of adhesive backed mylar and fixed them to a group of 20 balloons that were scattered around the gallery on the day of the party.

Balloon Drop

At the end of the Gender Re-Reveal Party, guests were invited to participate in a balloon drop in the Visual Arts Building 2nd Floor Gallery. Balloons were filled with silver glitter (rather than blue or pink) as well as quotes by queer and gender non-conforming authors. Participants who found one of three gold disks won a book by a selection of the authors from the student’s Literature and Gender Non-Conformity course, including: