Asterisk, 2022, Wood, Overall dimensions: 151 x 151 x 28 cm
Asterisk attempts to emphasize important points of exclusion within Canadian blood donation policies that are not explicitly stated in the government-regulated Canadian Blood Services (CBS) organization. Since 1992, Health Canada has implemented bans against men who have sex with other men.
Asterisks are almost non-existent throughout all CBS marketing material, and those that do exist do not emphasize areas of exclusion to men who have sex with men, and to women who have sex with men who have sex with other men. Though Canadian Blood Services has recently proposed new screening criteria that does not consider gender and sexuality, the blood service is still under regulation by the Public Health Agency of Canada, which continues to promote homophobia by banning sexually active men who have multiple male sex partners, while engaging in penetrative sex.
Like the function of an asterisk, the Asterisk in this work brings attention to the omission, and exception of homosexuals and homosexual activity as dis-qualifiers for eligible donation. In essence, Asterisk expresses what CBS will not explicitly state: If a gay man has had sex a single time with one male partner in the last three months, he cannot donate blood. In that same time-span, a straight man can have sex with as many different partners as he likes and he is still eligible to donate blood.
Below is a link to the Canadian Blood Services website, which includes the screening questionnaire.
https://www.blood.ca/en/blood/donating-blood/donor-questionnaire