*EXTENDED TO November 30th, 2022*

Curated by Camille Intson and Maggie MacDonald

COMPLEX PLEASURES is a public exhibit featuring six short films that showcase complex representations, or subjective and troubling pleasures, confronting academics, archivists, and general audiences. 

All films on display come from the Erotic Film Collection, which is part of the Sexual Representation Collection, Canada's largest collection of sex work history and adult film history with a particular focus on feminist, queer, trans, and kink sexual cultures.

Donated by media archivist Albert Steg and the George Eastman Museum, the Erotic Film Collection consists of a diverse range of hardcore and softcore pornographic film and ephemera, including 1,824 8mm films, 863 16mm films, 203 super8 reels, 302 paper pamphlets, 20 books, 7 card decks, 1 box of peepshow stills, and 1 box of assorted correspondence. Highlights from the collection include two prints of El Satario, the world's oldest extant pornographic film, silent era stag films, pre-war hardcore films, coin-op peepshow films, and films featuring brown, Black, and trans performers from Latin America, East and Southeast Asia, the United States, and Canada.