Elle Barbara

Elle Barbara is a Montreal-based avant-garde singer-songwriter, pinup, writer, director, curator, performance artist and intervention worker, whose musical output combines elements of sophisti-pop, psychedelia, glam, and underground. A lover of the odd, dark, or overlooked elements in pop music, Elle rose from artist-run spaces at the turn of the 2010s and has seen their work soar to enduring acclaim in a career whose highlights include duets with R. Stevie Moore, Laetitia Sadier and Sean Nicolas Savage. In recent years Barbara's efforts have mainly been centered around trans/queer community organizing, including contributions in Montreal's emerging ballroom scene, as the Mother of the House of Barbara; a collective whose transdisciplinary practice encompasses art and activism. Elle’s current music project, Elle Barbara's Black Space, aims to center transness and reject anti-black tropes.