Opening Reception of Passing Through by Jason Purcell

Join Latitude 53 for the opening reception of Passing Through by Jason Purcell on Friday, July 10^th at 7PM. 

Through conversations and collaborations with artist Kyle Terrence, Jason Purcell recasts the archetypes of Western masculinity: the queer kid uncertain of what to do with it, and the man who wears it as a costume. Passing Through evokes the transitory space of the motel, the movement of needle and thread through material, and for the queer Albertan of a certain age, the practice of eliding accusations of queerness. Maybe, after the lights go out and the sun sets, after the last car exits the lot and the lock is turned on the motel room door, another Alberta comes to exist that only we know how to make home in.

Exhibition runs from July 8 — 25, 2026.

Jason Purcell is a writer, musician, and artist from amiskwacîwâskahikan, Treaty 6 (Edmonton, Alberta), where they are a PhD student in Department of English, Film, and Creative Writing at the University of Alberta. They are the author of Swollening (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2022) and Crohnic, (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2025), the latter of which was a finalist for the Robert Kroestch — City of Edmonton Book Prize. Across their work they’re interested in questions of gender, masculinity, and place.