trashcanmedia

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Michelle Moulson (she/her) - REBIRTH VOL.2

@mmade.art

Michelle makes abstract work that reflects her life experience. Growing up in rural Manitoba to a fractured family, she learned by growing up on a farm. Michelle is passionate about the environment and tries to use waste materials in her practice. She is a multi-disciplinary artist working in collage, painting, photography, Linocut, designing and digital media.

Based in Winnipeg, Manitoba

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“I am an emotional creature and that is very much reflected in my work.”

These pieces are from a collection I’m working on reflecting my childhood. The complex emotions of pain, hate, disappointment, lack of care.

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What adds to the Sweetness of your life?

My wonderful husband. He is beyond supportive of my artistic career. I have a health condition that keeps me home a lot and he is supportive in every way.

How are you answering the cries of the earth?

I think it’s important that if you have had a trauma or life experience, that you deal with these issues. Sexual assault is something that hits home for me and I’m working on pieces relating to that. I also constantly dig through my recycling bin for things to use in my pieces. Reusing items is my favourite.

What are you learning about seeing and being seen?

I am learning that it’s okay to accept love and praise. To really let that sink in and be accepting. I am not very good with compliments and I’m learning to accept these things more.

What supports you taking a leap into the unknown?

I have a beautiful group of art friends I met in Venice this past summer at an art school I attended. They give me the courage to do anything. Having a supportive group who understands you is key in life!

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Trashcan Media, Michelle Moulson, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.2 published April 1st 2024 ‘REBIRTH’

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Ava Shahres (they/her) - FREAKFACTOR vol.5

@bastanipop

“Hi! My name is Ava, and I am big fat lesbian who likes to dress up and make funny pictures.”

Based in North Vancouver British Colombia.

Full Disclosure - A piece about one of the freakiest things of all; Insecurity. I illustrated this when I was a teen as a sort of stylized snapshot of my internal conflicts. I'd always let my warped, euro-centric perceptions of beauty inform my own self worth, and over time those expectations changed into something ghoulish and scary. I wanted to create a character that demonstrated how warped my perception of "beauty" had become, and how I was letting it bleed into my subconscious. These feelings never go away, but my hormonal yearning for thin, white prettiness has thankfully gotten quieter.

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What are you scared of?

The texture of tomatoes and failing a backflip.

What do you believe in? What don't you believe in?

I believe we weren't put on this earth for a purpose, and that we should just live for our own joy. I don't believe we should have to justify our existence.

How are you embracing your inner "freak"?

By dressing super silly and being very queer.

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Trashcan Media, Ava Shahres, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.5 published October 1st 2024 ‘FREAK FACTOR’

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Image description: “nature is queer, so am i” written alongside a collage of examples. A sea lemon, two leopard slugs gettin jiggy with it, some ginko leaves, a gumtree leaf, some inky cap mushrooms, and a gynandromorphic moth

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Jesse (He/him/they/them)

@Mossyborealturtle

Jesse works with all mediums!! He dabbles in many art forms and will continue to try as many as they can. They are a queer living in so called vancouver, however they grew up in the prairies

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How do you try to practise radical love?

By giving love freely without expectations <3 We all want to love and be loved. It's the small things that can sometimes mean the most, surprising my friends with a little baked good, scribble or drawing, fun stickers, or a home cooked meal.

What does building community look like to you?

Creating and maintaining meaningful connections and care for one another

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Trashcan Media, Jesse, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.1 published February 1st 2024 ‘WELCOME TO THE WORLD’

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Todd (he/she/they/any)

“I'm a hobbyist visual artist & I like to work mainly with traditional media (but digital art is fun too). I'm driven to create both as a form of self-expression and as a way to observe & capture reality.”

Based in Montreal, QC

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where the trees form a ring above the asphalt i am still walking in the evening i hear the cicadas, i see the flies

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Trashcan Media, Todd, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.5 published October 1st 2024 ‘FREAKFACTOR’

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Kaedin Vicary (he/they)

@mustardmasher

“Hi :) my medium of choice is collage & my favorite thing to do is make people smile. I struggle with mental illness and all that super fun stuff, I’m 22 and my favorite colour is blue.”

Based in Vancouver.

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What are you going to do today for yourself?

Decompress. I’m a bricklayer by day and I fucking hate it.

What warms you?

My thoughts & love in all forms.

What do you wish to leave behind entering 2025?

Self loathing and my attachment to comfort.

Do you have any favourite winter traditions?

Hot chocolate & walking through the festival of lights in my hometown. Also doing wake and bakes and playing cod zombies with my little brother.

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Trashcan Media, Kaedin Vicary, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.6 published December 1st 2024 ‘EPIPHANY’

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Rubino (he/him) - ART IS DEAD vol.4

@det1r1vore

“I'm Rubino :0 I grew up in BC but now live in Montreal. Primarily my practice in centered around feeling comfortable with discomfort, and a way for me to sort out my anxieties about myself and the world around me.”

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Why are stories important?

I think the sharing of knowledge happens primarily through storytelling.

How are you celebrating what challenges you?

doing it and loving myself for it.

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The ArtisDead Thinkpiece

By: Rubino

So art is dead? Not the first time I've heard it, nor the first time I have felt it. Yet something about the aforementioned statement demands clarification for me to accept as reality rather than a misguided expression of resentment.. Now in order to understand this statement for what it truly means, we must understand the functionality of death on socio-conceptual and organic levels. It is from within the arts, in combination with observation and reflection on the world around me that I have come to understand death as something intrinsic to life. Throughout this discussion we will unpack how and why death functions this way, and re apply this logic to the understanding of the arts: its expression, and the spaces that it exists in, in order to find out if art is truly dead, and what that means for us as artists.

Understanding death

It's no easy task I have assigned us dear reader, to understand death, we must discard neither subjective nor objective realities. It is at this point as thinkers we must be open to all possible interpretations of the unknown. To clarify, I am not asking after the soul, nor its journey, but the specific event of death and its function in the livingworld. There are two main concepts I must be able to articulate for the sake of discussion: loss and decomposition. There is a physical and emotional side to both these frameworks which must be mutually understood to articulate the function of dead.

Loss is quite literally the act of losing something. There are many ways to experience loss, this definition being vague with intention. We lose things. We lose people, relationships, objects, abilities– if you can “have” it you can(and will) lose it. There’s a lovely duality here to acknowledge, it’s a classic dynamic and an inescapable cliché. Tangibly, this can be manifested through the death of a loved one, the end of a friendship, or even mismatched socks; their partners devoured by the couch and washing machine. Sometimes an intangible loss is more nuanced to identify: a misguided expectation, obstruction in the path of a goal, the fleeting warmth of the last rays of a sinking sun ,and accepting bitter truths. There is even a loss to be experienced in the most loving self actualizations: I am a man (now I have to stop trying to be something I'm not). The emotional affect of loss is grief. These examples are griefs that I have been personally faced with, and should be universally understood on varying levels. Of course grief itself is an emotional state that finds everyone many times, but reactions, and ways of processing should be expected to differ widely across cultures, communities, individuals, and instances.

In order for the subject/object to be dead it must be lost in a way that disables its return to the original state, such that would cause an experience of grief.

Decomposition is the physical act of transforming from one state into another after death. Again, like loss decomposition is a concept that applies to a diverse set of situations involving the act of death, dying, and being dead. Even the physical decomposition of a dead body will vary based on numerous environmental factors, in addition to the chosen method of preserving the body. For example, when my father’s body was recovered it had been submerged in water for some time, he had decayed to the point that he was nearly unrecognizable. Thus only my mother was permitted to see the body until cremation was finished. Still, after cremation, and the ashes had been collected, there is no way of knowing that this is the case. I reference both the literal decomposition of a subject and a non-traditional usage to describe processes of change related to the loss of said subject. My father had non-figuratively decomposed in the water, his nitrogen feeding the life in the river and wetlands surrounding. When he was burned in a simple pine casket his body underwent a secondary, figurative sort of decomposition in which flesh bones bloat and pine turn to ashes. Ashes scooped into sachets. I have one, my sister another, my mom’s, I think she has hers. But there is another portion of him fully consumed by the river. Part of the body was consumed by the flooding river that spring and summer.

Later, a portion of ashes is intentionally given back to the wetlands. He feeds a trail we walked along many times, many years ago.

And back to the river again in 2024, a different spot, ashes in the water sinking into the sand. My sachet of ashes is seemingly sacred and safe, yet I know that nothing is immortal to time, clumsiness, sunlight, or the oils secreted by my skin. With death, decomposition is inevitable. On an emotional level this brings us back around to our discussion of grief. Grief acts out the uncomfortable and transformative measures of decomposition, addressing emotional response, rather than physicality. This is to acknowledge memory and emotion as subjects of decomposition after death, and acknowledge the natural sadness that comes at and all moments after the loss.

In identifying the act of decomposition we must consider the goal of the outside effects on the flesh. Inherent to decomposition is an eventual transformation from one body back to the earth. This can be the physical return to dirt: nourishing plants, fungi and all kinds of microorganisms, eventually creating food for larger creatures, who die and become bodies and bloat and bones and dirt again.

Another manifestation is through the loss of memory, and retelling of stories. We must re-remember in grief, over time memories become warped, selected, and retold through the mouths of others. If I ever have children their only knowledge of my father will be through stories, and he will be but a legend to them, this too is decomposition in its own right. The place where the cycle seemingly restarts is a place of peace or acceptance, as the lost item is returned back to the place of origination.

Understanding the Death of Art

Here there is no sense in defining art as we did death. It’s not that the real world effects of art are more or less tangible than death’s, but that my personal understanding of art is simpler to define. Art is in everything. Every creative expression is art. It's not about skill, it's about creativity. Sure I might find enjoyment in an art piece that is both aesthetically and conceptually fleshed out more often than one that isn’t, however the ‘quality’ of art is not the matter of this discussion, and frankly I think it is irrelevant to the understanding of death I am utilizing here. Art is the outcome or object, the creative expression is the action of making art /the force it is derived from. Creativity is a capability that anyone can tap into at any given time, an instinct perhaps as well as the subject of decomposition. Art is the physical thing that dies or the subject that is lost, but creativity can only be subject to decomposition. This is to say in every moment (although maybe not at the time of) there is an opportunity for creative growth. Real moments of loss have been a catalyst for the production and conceptual understanding of my art. Sometimes this is immediate, but many times it takes slow painful reflection to enact the tactics of loss and decomposition.

As a recent(ish) art school graduate, I must admit the current reality of the art market is not exactly pretty. In turn I must acknowledge the validity of the frustrations of my peers. I can make art; the issue is selling it. I would fault capitalism for producing, replicating, and thriving off of the contexts in which we must market and sell ourselves alongside our art to be bought as products. However we mustn't dare credit the wills of capital for the death(s) of art. I am grateful that art, and its infinite expressions predate capitalism. To know the death of art is not a function of capitalist values but a function of art itself should serve as a massive relief and perhaps a place in which to source action. The ability for art to kill itself will be essential to art outliving capitalism (as it has died and outlived many eras of human history) . The artist has spent millennia pushing their craft forwards, transforming it into something new. While art and culture transform alongside one another, both perpetuate the effects of the other. If the artist seeks to escape the shackles of capitalist, consumer, “high art” culture, it becomes time to kill art. I believe this can be done through a variety of avenues. Nevertheless, to succeed in a true killing, as to start a new pattern, there must be something to lose. There must be something to decompose and a greater purpose for decaying flesh to feed. In the instance of systemic networks such as the aforementioned capitalist forces, there becomes the need for entire communities to come together to kill art. To dismantle such a thing would certainly involve the death of life as we currently know it, but decomposition can only bring us closer to an organic state. I imagine this as a world where we take much better care of eachother. While grief is inherently ‘not fun’ one may persevere through the stinkiest parts of its rotting state, to find new growth. After a shared experience of grief it is common to come out with deeper communal understanding. Now I could reckon all day with art, grief and capitalism, but today this is not my end goal. This is all to illustrate the power art serves on a large scale, to have us both as reader and writer, engage in an inter/intrapersonal critique of our art’s function in therealworld. As I continue my writing, and sort out my thoughts, I find myself inciting the death of art.

We may use intentionality to kill art, but sometimes it just silently slips away in the night and we do not notice until something doesn’t feel right anymore– something is missing. Now no shade to Miss Emily, but the four years I attended Emily Carr University of Art and Design are still giving me nightmares, over a year after graduating with my BFA. I can’t say I felt well prepared to jump into the arts as a primary source of income. And what has my art degree even got me? Well, I got lifelong friendships, sharpened my critical engagement and thinking skills, a cannabinoid dependency, and a creative spirit stomped down and fermented into a fine aged wine, leaving me woozy and evocative. But did I get a job? Fuck no, not ‘in my field’. Throughout my schooling I struggled to accept the death of my art practice as it was before my formal art education. Just when I’ve done enough work to find something to hold on to, I am faced with a new context again. Like a first sip of an expensive wine, it’s drier than I had naively expected. A part of this is just growing up and learning to accept, and another knows I must understand what action must be taken to change this. Both of these thoughts are the workings of grief. It is such that the death of art incites both personal, and communal evolution.

As of late, it seems that both my peers and I have been demanding some kind of change. Faulting many different exterior forces for this death of art, however they do naught but apply pressure. It is up to the artist to revolutionize the production of art. We are the artmakers after all! We control the function of art. Be not afraid to cry. Be not afraid to try new mediums; to ask for help; to offer kindness. In these actions in which we serve our core values and nurture our creativity we may decompose with grace.

In summary

So is art Dead? Sure. Does it matter? No. Why not? It seems that as an innate functionality of death it must give birth to something new. Art dies all the time, and as long as there are artists pushing art forwards, art will always be dead. It is in the decomposition of the dying art in which inspiration is derived, praxis advances, and new materials found. I celebrate the death of art, everyday I attend her funeral. I pick up her bones and sharpen them into weapons. Dry friction dissolves them to dust in my hands, taken by the wind, and I scramble after. Down a rocky slope, tripping and landing in a rush of cold water. I can’t wait to see where my body will lay still.

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Trashcan Media, Rubino, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.4 published August 1st 2024 ‘ART IS DEAD’

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Liam Tait (he/him) - PRIDE vol.3

@Liam_tait

“My name is Liam Tait, I'm a photographer located in Vancouver BC. i see my photography as a form of meditation and relaxation, a comfort zone i guess. it allows me to go out and be creative with out any judgement or criticism from anyone, and allows me to tell story's in a different way. i don't plan to dive head first into making photography my career, i think that would take the joy out of it. this is my way of shaking off any stress or worries i have and trying to pay bills by doing so would completely rune this form of escape. instead i like to have a main job and goals in life, and have this as my escape from reality when times get hard. with each photo i take i like to include a pre existing song to go along with the image, to help portray my vision further. its a cool way of mixing photography and music together!”

“There are a few different ways to look at the photos I've chosen. one is sexual abuse, two is possession, and three is sexually identifying in your own way when the rest of the world is forcing you to be something that you aren't.”

What are you Proud of?

I'm proud of where I am in life and what I've accomplished, and what's important to me right now

How do you celebrate?

night time bike rides with my friends

What are you running towards?

staying happy

Why is queer media important?

because its about damn time that people except one another for who they are

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Trashcan Media, Liam Tait, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.3 published July 1st 2024 ‘PRIDE’

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Pages 38-41 of Making Stuff and Doing Things by Kyle Bravo

Book Binding for Beginners by Merrydeath Stern

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REBIRTH- vol.2 release

Front and back cover

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REBIRTH

Out free digitally now!

In our second edition, dive into powerful articles, poetry and prose that will touch your soul and make you think.

Lose yourself in this curated selection of visual arts that will leave you uncomfortable and inspired.

Published by Trashcan Media, Beautiful Trash is more than a magazine, it's a space for those left behind by typical societal constructs. As a Queer-run collective, we believe it's important to uplift the voices of underrepresented artists.

Join us on this joyful, junky, journey of discovery, grieving, and celebration.

Let's make some noise

Let's make some art

Let's make a difference

Long live print!

Info and contents page

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Trashcan Media, Jebs Sawatsky, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.2 published April 1st 2024 ‘REBIRTH’

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Anna (she/her) - WELCOME TO THE WORLD vol.1

@ 4nn4.44

Anna is a full-time nature-preschool educator, caretaker, and an artist. Teaching and caring for COVID-generation toddlers in an alternative school means that her eyes see through the lenses of an ever-changing, ever questioning, and ever growing inner (and outer) world, in all its wretchedness and in all its glory. She wants to amplify the lessons she learns and share through the healing of each tear, each unkindness, and each scrape.

‘Looking away’, oil pastel on toned paper

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“After age 5, once moving onto Kindergarten, the children experience school inside of walls for the first time, without the soft cushion of soil beneath them, and injury becomes difficult to quell. Injury and injustice become difficult to explain as conditions to be solved, when they are simultaneously the most necessary functions of the system we’ve built.

My job here is to nurture and validate the innate healing nature of humans that I see everyday, modelled by babies whose first language is and evolutionarily must be: empathy. We are still them.”

An angry man has no eyes’, charcoal on paper ‘

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I felt ‘It’, but I didn’t find ‘Him’

- January 12, 2024

The man who brought everything back to the divine intuition he has been gifted by Christ, I think his name is Ray, tried to deliver me from my mental illness, and asked for me to accept Jesus as my savior, inside a Tim Hortons at 11pm.

In both instances, he had a flash of anticipation, or preemptive pride, cross his face. As if he were about to procure additional evidence for the power of Christ, out of the testimony of my reaction to whatever he was about to do. He turned to his disciple, Tod, who bowed a nod of Holy confirmation. He asked permission to exorcize me of my anxiety demon, based on the fearful energy he felt emanating out of me like a smokestack. (Which is reasonable, I was watching these men and analyzing them very rapidly and critically up unto this point). I said ‘sure, why not’, as I have truthfully been very anxious recently (or all of my life), and this felt like a won’t-hurt-to-try situation. They then three joined arms over me and prayed for my release from anxiety’s grasp (or the devil’s grasp, which causes the worldly anxiety that I feel, according to them). Despite the explicit Christian overtones, this I actually felt quite deeply moved by. I felt a warm roiling energy come up inside of my chest and through my spine into my head as they did it. Which genuinely surprised me out of my state of deep observation and scrutiny. It almost made me scream out loud, as the feeling was so sudden and intense it felt like it needed to be externalized somehow. Like when you need to sneeze and your eyes water, a short-fused warning before an involuntary outburst. But I just sat and accepted the experience instead, allowing my eyes to just open and close as they needed and my head to nod along to their words. This intrigued me, and felt like a genuine moment of spirituality, or whatever it is that people seek beyond themselves. Not at its base grounded in ego, agenda, or scripture necessarily, but in the healing of a relative stranger. If I do believe in God, It’s in whatever allows for the latter to happen out of pure empathy, rather than of material or personal gain.

Later on after some conversation that was a bit more on topic, Ray asked me directly, pretty out of context, if I would accept Jesus Christ into my heart ‘right here, right now’. I looked immediately and silently at Che in the way a kid does to a mother, when they have no real understanding of the question being asked and what its consequences are. To which Che said ‘Its up to you love. Personally, I found Jesus while I was dancing in my kitchen. I opened my arms and asked him to dance with me’. She laughed a full chested laugh, and swept her long salt and pepper hair over one shoulder, dabbing her inner eyes. The conditioned but legitimate fear I felt immediately left my body, in a deep remembering that the way I meet my ‘maker’ will never be at a newly-met cis-white man’s command, but by my own hand and my own intuition. An ideology conceived in bodily fear at the hand of another is a house surrounded by creeping, thorny vines that keep a fearful child locked inside.

I breathed in, then turned and told Ray that I’ll meet ‘Jesus’ in my own private time, but thank you truly for the opportunity. To which Tod said, and I quote, “Amen, sister”. Ray sat back a bit in his chair, seemingly stunned that I enacted my own agency in the hand delivered vision that many ‘God’-fearing men have had: ‘in my name, right here right now’. A plague of a statement that has corrupted nearly every single patriarchal institution of religion and governance since the dawn of the conscious man. I read it immediately off his face when he asked for me to accept Jesus in that moment, in front of his eyes. I knew his intention, and his perversion, and I knew by Che’s reaction, that this doesn’t have to be the only way.

When intention is grounded in love, it creates the magic we try to name. When it is grounded in power, it kills people and desecrates the land.

-a.g.h

‘Remembering’, watercolor and ink on paper

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How do you try to practise radical love?

I’m still learning

What does building community look like to you?

Saying yes when I can help, and having integrity to know when I can’t. Accepting kindness and striving to redistribute it as currency of change.

‘Compression’, charcoal on paper

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You can listen to Anna’s haunted folk music under the name Cranberry Virgin here

Trashcan Media, Anna, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.1 published February 1st 2024 ‘WELCOME TO THE WORLD’

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Delaney (they/them) - ART IS DEAD vol.6

@ yenaleds

music journalist, zine maker and dyke.

Based in the unceded and unsurrendered land of the Halkomelem speaking peoples and Qayqayt First Nation (New Westminster)

Why are stories important?

Because people are important (every single one)

How are you celebrating what challenges you?

There’s good pain and bad pain. Challenge, even good or asked for, often calls in bad pain. Cramps and headaches and fear, fear, fear. Learning to be excited by that, the bad pain, can turn consternation to celebration.

What's your favourite colour?

the nail polish my girlfriend’s sister leant me for a wedding- a pretty sort of opal colour 

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Trashcan Media, Delaney, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.4 published August 1st 2024 ‘ART IS DEAD’

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Girlboybird (she/he) - ART IS DEAD vol.4

@girlboybird

@ girlboybird

Multimedia artist from the Coast Salish territories, Lekwungen ("Victoria", BC), currently attending NSCAD University in . Work focuses on sexuality, sci-fi-fantasy, queerness, and horror. Specializes in collage, filmmaking, and illustration. LOVES learning history and writing erotica about evil doctors in free time!

Currently based in Mi'kmaq territory, Kjipuktuk ("Halifax", NS).

The five collages here are part of a series from a zine called PORNPORN 2, a series of works put together in the middle of my first year at uni. The works express my love for kink and the human form, while allowing me to put a little horror and humour in as well. Together they represent a sexy reprieve from the everyday. I love a punch of sexy fantasy.

What do you dream about?

Hot sex and terrifying mazes.

Trashcan Media, girlboybird, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.4 published August 1st 2024 ‘ART IS DEAD’

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Andy Poystila (he/him) - FREAKFACTOR vol.6

@percifax

@ percifax

Andy is a transmasc queer artist and graphic designer who loves to draw and play.

Based on Unceded lands of the hənqəminəm and Sḵwxwú7mesh Sníchim speaking peoples.

What are you scared of?

NEEDLES!!! needles... so badly. we need more trans representation of being scared as fuck of hormone shots. I get so scared - i have missed the last two becasue of my mental block.

How are you embracing your inner "freak"?

weird sex.

What do you believe in? What don't you believe in?

In terms of the spiritual and supernatural, I believe in the energies related to tarot readings and horoscopes. I believe in the energy which was once a living person now gone.

Trashcan Media, Andy Poystila, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.5 published October 1st 2024 ‘FREAKFACTOR’

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Sequel Adamson (she/her) - REBIRTH vol.2

@sequel__

Based in coquitlam, canada. Sequel only writes when she’s angry, she has a very short temper so she writes often.

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How are you answering the cries of the earth?

With fistfuls of dirt and watering cans

Trashcan Media, Sequel Adamson, Beautiful Trash for Beautiful People, vol.2 published April 1st 2024 ‘REBIRTH’