Justin Case: Cold War LGBT Purge Posters
During his 2022 residency at The Diefenbunker: Canada’s Cold War Museum, Christos Pantieras reimagined Justin Case, the 1950s Canadian Civil Defence mascot, to confront the historical trauma of Canada’s LGBT Purge. The purge consisted of the surveillance and dismissal of LGBTQ+ service members between the 1950s and the early 1990s.
The project was presented as a portrait of Justin Case, a closeted homosexual, which was framed by the events of the purge of which he participated. In one element of his final exhibition, Pantieras created the Justin Case LGBT Purge propaganda posters. In this series of eight posters, the once-friendly mascot is subverted into an RCMP investigator tasked with "warning" the public about queer individuals. By blending hand-painted vintage comic book aesthetics with the background colours of the original 1970s Pride flag, Pantieras transforms Cold War-era propaganda posters into historical records of systemic discrimination.
