Page 33 - 01-Jan-Feb-2025

Hair: Kelly Oneschuk / Ruby Gorgeous Jacket: Stanley Carroll
composer and historian, with his
long-running Queer History Project being
an ever-expanding passion (he also hosts
its podcast, From Here to Queer).
The project started as a play, then a
book of the same name — Hagen’s 1997
debut, The Edmonton Queen, “the first
queer-history book ever written about
the underground in Edmonton.” But he
didn’t know the book, now in its fourth
printing, would send him on a decades-
long journey of research and sharing
stories of his community’s growing
(thanks in large part to his work) voice.
He also wrote and directed the award-
winning Pride vs. Prejudice: The Delwin
Vriend Story. The film documents Vriend’s
firing for being gay, and subsequent fight
back, which set off a chain of events that
led to marriage equality across Canada.
Hagen likes the sound of adding full-time
documentarian to his extensive résumé,
“but I’m 60 — how many more fucking ca-
reer evolutions can I do? I should try and
finish the things that I’ve started first,” he
says, referring to the “literally thousands of
pieces of music I could do something with.”
But for all the good his work has done
in bringing what was shadowed into the
light, Hagen sees darkness approaching.
“It’s fascinating and terrifying to be alive
now, where the things that I took for
granted a few decades ago — there’s no
guarantee they’ll stick around.” Being
a “grandma activist,” Hagen says he’s
“exhausted even reading about” what
younger people in his community now
face, because “frankly, I’m not fighting on
the frontlines anymore.”
Despite the dark, and after decades
of fighting for his community through
activism and art, the ever-confident
Hagen seems to be entering a more intro-
spective phase.
“I think everybody has a fascinating
life, but so many people are so tuned out
to their own experiences. They don’t see
the magic in what’s happening around
them. They don’t see the symbolism in
things that they are surrounded by. And
I think writing has really forced me to
re-examine my life as a piece of art, and
look at it as a palette of colours that I pull
from. This could apply to anyone: You
have to learn to treat your life like some-
thing that’s worth being inspired by.”
by CORY SCHACHTEL
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