Congratulations to Megan Arnold for winning the Lambda Foundation Scholarship in LGBT Studies at the University of Guelph!
Her biography:
Megan Arnold is a Filipinx-Canadian artist who wants to make you laugh and cry and cringe. She makes affective performances, videos, pop songs, and drawings that collapse the divisions between humour/pathos, amateurism/mastery, play/labour, and art/entertainment. Much of their practice is rooted in cabaret and bar entertainment, which is the great irony of their life as someone who likes to go to bed at 9pm.
Megan lives on Treaty 3 Territory in so-called Guelph. She completed her BFA at Western University in 2015 and her MFA at the University of Guelph in 2023. They have attended artist residencies in Ontario, Iceland, England, and Newfoundland. Most recently, she has performed at Chopped Liver and X Avant Festival in Toronto, PINCH Cabaret in Waterloo, Kazoo! Fest in Guelph, Signal Fires in Manchester, and FLIM NITE in Salford.
Her current research/interests:
My MFA thesis research was based around the story of the Flying Scotsman steam locomotive and her first caretaker, Alan Pegler. Flying Scotsman was decommissioned when diesel replaced steam in Britain in the 1960s, and the public was outraged that such an icon would be sent to the scrapyard. Pegler purchased the engine and, in my version of the story, a queer romance blossomed. Combining queer theory, cultural theory, performance studies, humour studies, history, and astrology, this research culminated in a 50-minute experimental theatre/alternative comedy/performance art hybrid titled A Tender Engine. This performance playfully and absurdly considers the queerness of men who love machines, the power of going off-track, a steam-powered utopia, the invisibilised racialised labour of the North American railway system, and, most importantly, tru luv.
Congrats again Megan!