To make the work Wieland wore bright red lipstick and sang “O Canada” while pressing her lips to a lithographic stone with each new syllable. The resulting print shows rows of lips in various stages of opening and closing. Using the title as an important clue, Canadian viewers will likely feel their mouths twitch in recognition. In effect, this is a kind of interactive art. 

Her act of patriotic allegiance was deliberately gendered, moreover: these are female lips, and possibly sexy lips. The art historian John O’Brian remarks that “the print ironically conflates male patriotic love with female erotics, while refusing to collapse the tension between the two.” Instead of taking national identity for granted, Wieland calls on the viewer to reimagine, reclaim, and embody nationhood.

This Spotlight is excerpted from Joyce Wieland: Life & Work by Johanne Sloan.