Opening May 22nd in the Alternator Project Gallery is Tender City: The Silent Slow Dance Project by Kevin Jesuino!
The modern city is a masterpiece of hardness. Its concrete arteries, steel horizons, and rigid grids are not accidental; they are the physical manifestations of hetero-patriarchal capitalist ideals that prioritize efficiency, surveillance, and productivity above all else. In this environment, the human body, and specifically the queer body, is often viewed as an obstacle to the flow of capital or a site to be regulated. This urban hardness fosters a pervasive alienation that disconnects us from each other and the natural world.
Tender City: The Silent Slow Dance Project is a socially engaged intervention that seeks to pierce this rigidity. By inviting queer men to engage in consensual, silent slow dances on public street corners, the project creates fissures in the city's hardened infrastructure.
This work draws its choreographic inspiration from queer cruising. Historically, cruising was a way for gay/ bi / bicurious men to find intimacy with each other and connect in a world that rejected their existence. It relied on a sophisticated, non-verbal language of glances, coded gestures, and the subversion of urban space. Tender City translates this clandestine, intimate choreography into a public act of intimacy.
While not explicitly about ecological data, Tender City participates in the urgent discourse of climate justice. The systemic disconnection that alienates us from our neighbors is the same extractive logic that drives the climate crisis.
Climate justice requires resilience; the capacity to persist, care for one another, and maintain a connection to place amidst crisis. By reintroducing slowness and softness into the public right-of-way, this project models the relational practices essential for building just, sustainable communities. It is an invitation to shift away from the frantic, domineering urban beat and move toward a relational rhythm rooted in mutual care.
As part of this exhibition, gay, bisexual, and trans men were invited to participate in a facilitated public silent slow dance in Kelowna. The project has archived documentation from slow dances in every city where this work has been presented: Vancouver (Canada), Mexico City (Mexico), Fortaleza (Brazil). Upcoming in 2026, this work will also travel to Nanaimo (Canada) and Lethbridge (Canada).
In this gallery space, the documentation—the torso-focused video installation—serves as a living archive. It allows these fleeting moments of intimacy to linger in public memory, offering a reimagined vision of the city. The video installation is not merely a record; it is a continued invitation for men to engage in the transformative act of partnered silent slow dancing in the gallery and anywhere in the city.
Join us on Friday, May 22nd from 6 - 8pm for an double opening reception, as we celebrate along with Lara Felsing’s Shallow Breaths in our Main Gallery.
Kevin Jesuino is a Vancouver-based Portuguese-Canadian artist who works at the intersection of performance, dance, socially engaged art, photography, video, and any other medium that helps him convey his ideas. His work has been shown in performance and visual art venues, as well as in parking lots, street corners, public parks, back alleys, and DIY spaces across Canada and abroad. Beyond his own solo practice, Jesuino collaborates with diverse communities, scientists, architects, choreographers, and scholars, inhabiting the fluid roles of performer, sculptor, and co-conspirator.
Jesuino’s installations and performances revolve around the architecture of performative inquiry. His works are careful orchestrations of participatory actions and documentation, responding to the urgent themes of uncertain change, unseen histories, and urban connection to the natural world. Deeply rooted in the transformative labour of decolonization and equitable liberation, Jesuino integrates video art, temporary public interventions, and movement to invite participants to navigate complex social questions through embodied, playful and witness actions.
See more of Jesuino’s work on Instagram!