"Slumberparty 2018" is a remake of a 1984 Super 8 film called Slumberparty made by the Positive Pornographers, a mostly queer collective of Toronto-based artists, activists and sex-workers. Commissioned by A-Space Gallery's "Developing a Women's Erotic Language on Film" workshop, Slumberparty was made as a direct intervention in Toronto’s feminist porn debates. They wrote, “we didn’t set out to make a work of art. We set out to make something that might turn us on.
Join us for what one previewer called “Mary Poppins’ first lesbian orgy. Slumberparty screened twice in public in 1984 then disappeared until 2016, when the only reel was recovered and digitized. The Positive Pornographers promised each other never to show the film again without everyone’s permission. Using audio-description and obscured editing techniques, Slumberparty 2018 provides access to Slumberparty while preserving the anonymity of its makers. Rethinking what it means to “access” film and video histories, the video draws connections between the feminist “porn wars” of the 1980s, and current feminist debates about the ethics of digitizing sexual imagery in archives.
- Original film, Slumberparty, by the Positive Pornographers, 1984.