Through the Looking Glass: Inside Julius’ Domestic Portrait

Date: April 2 – 13, 2013

Partner: Art Museum at the University of Toronto

Location: University of Toronto Art Centre – map

Project Members: Laura McPhie

Julius Poncelet Manapul manipulates queer pornographic images to construct the furnishings and decorations of a fictional home. The repurposed iconography addresses areas of oppression in his life highlighting his struggles with desire and identity. In this fantasized space, Manapul carves out a place of his own which he invites viewers to inhabit with him.

In the past, Julius Poncelet Manapul’s art appropriated iconography from structures of oppression in his personal and cultural history. A large body of his work presented stunning pieces constructed from queer pornography that inverted the power dynamics present in his experiences of religion, immigration, sexuality and gender. In this exhibition, Julius looks to the future by crafting a domestic space for a fictional child named Christian James. The child and the space are constructed from a collage of Julius’s and his husband’s identities and shared life. In this evolution of his work, Julius invites visitors to engage, consume and interact with his child; the possibility of a future constructed from a harmonic convergence of identity.