Announcements

Pride in Art Society’s  Annual General Meeting (AGM) is scheduled for  Apr 27th, 2023 at 7pm PST . We invite (and  encourage! ) everyone to join us for a first look at  QAF 2023: Queers in Space  (coming this summer!) plus an exclusive dive into our financial reports. ASL Interpretation will be...

Indigenous Burlesque | July 17 | 7 pm Embrace your too-muchness with bombastic burlesque brought to you by the badass babes of Virago Nation , Turtle Island’s first all-indigenous burlesque collective. Featuring special guests Monday Blues and Lynx Chase! Whether you’ve seen it before or always wanted, now’s your chance...

Closing Binge | July 26 | 4 PM Get your dress jammies on, grab a drink and binge-watch the entire Queer Arts Festival with us (take it all in!!). Expect surprises and special prizes.  ...

Dance Performance | July 25 | 7 PM | July 26 | 2 PM In his Swan Song, contemporary dance legend Noam Gagnon sashays the fine line between pain and pleasure in a fetishization of something glamorous and beautifully twisted: a monster beautified. Synopsis: This piece is a reflection on...

Drag Performance | July 24 | 7 pm | The QAF proudly welcomes The Darlings — Continental Breakfast, PM, Rose Butch and Maiden China —to the stage, ahem, screen , with a new performance created around the festival theme of ‘wickedness.’ The multidisciplinary, non-binary drag performance collective has been taking...

Speculative Theatre | July 23 | 7 pm | Underground Absolute Fiction is an immersive play-meets-punk-concert, inspired by the apartment theatre of 1980s Poland. It invites audiences into a secret meeting at a post-Communist home. There, they join a queer punk band and Lena, a Polish-Canadian settler. Created by Anais...

Literary Readings | July 22 | 7 pm | A Night of Storytelling is back for its fifth year and once again hosted by the much-beloved Danny Ramadan, this time around as a new online experience. Spend a night in with the talented LGBTQ2+ voices of the CanLit scene. Danny...

| July 18 + July 19 | 7 PM Rupture Probe and Return to Sodom North look at the continuity of themes across the two decades that separate the works. They also illustrate the resilience of shorter experimental forms that emerging queer festivals preferred and rapidly evolving technologies coveted. However,...

Curated by Jonny Sopotiuk | July 16 - 26 | Curator Statement Queer life is a reality of ongoing survival. From government and societal oppression, to family rejection and social isolation our memories and experiences have been defined and shaped by the structures that are designed to contain us. Our...

April 11, 2019 - 7-8pm Come to a party at our Annual General Meeting. We’ll be providing updates on new developments at Pride in Art Society, and giving a sneak peek into this year’s festival. Not only does the AGM provide us the opportunity to hang out with you in...

Practicum students from the Social Justice Institute at UBC, Nikita Day and Emily Irvine, interview  2018 DECADEnce Visual Art curator  Valérie d. Walker and 2017 UnSettled Literary curator  Samantha Nock about their experiences curating for the Queer Arts Festival, their artistic practices, and the significance of queer art in the...

Curatorial Statement by Adrian Stimson, Queer Arts Festival visual art curator 2017 We live in Unsettling times — the world feels under siege, unsafe, tensions between alt-right and social left, neo-liberalism, ongoing wars, Orlando, Chechnya gay purge, the US Republican Administration rollback of civil and gay rights, fake news, mutual...

Explorations of two-spirit identity will take forefront at annual event this year. Two-spirit perspectives that aren’t often heard will be featured at Vancouver’s annual Queer Arts Festival this summer — and its curator hopes it will open the door for more work of the same theme to be shown across...

UnSettled will feature the works of 17 two-spirit artists at the 2017 Queer Arts Festival in Vancouver DailyXtra  – Mar 24, 2017 –  Chahira Merarsi . After years as a tribal councillor with the Siksika Nation, Adrian Stimson’s life changed when they took the plunge and applied to art school. “I...

The scale of the loss in Orlando is unfathomable. This horrifying violence is a reminder that we live in a false paradise, that homophobia is still killing us. It’s important that we don’t fall for the rhetoric of crazy lone gunman and terrorist act—except insofar that every queer-bashing is a...

Pride in Art is a registered charity in the Scotiabank 5K and Half-Marathon on Sunday June 26! Sponsor a runner or walker, and proceeds go towards producing the Queer Arts Festival. We are running for our lives.  You can sponsor: TILDA BERRY MOO BRAVEHEART SWINTON, WONDER DOG OF LITTLE DOG...

As 2015 comes to an end, I’d like to give a great big Thank You to all the amazing Queer Arts Family who have answered our 2015 fundraising call.  It’s been an overwhelming outpouring of support in the past month, which has brought us to 92% of our $25,000 goal...

PROX:IMITY RE:MIX is a 2 week process that offers skill building in dance, theatre and new media and highlights the unique identities and talents of local queer and allied youth (ages 15-24). No previous performance training is necessary. The content is created from a series of discussions with the youth...

New start time for Alien Sex We met with the team on Sunday, and we’re excited to report that their creative juices have been flowing freely. They’ve spawned so much more material than we anticipated for this point in the workshopping process, that we realized the 8:30 start time for...

By Robert Mangelsdorf – Published July 30, 2014, WE Vancouver Throughout history, tyrants have banned “degenerate” artists or artworks under the argument that they posed an imminent danger to the social fabric. The theme o f Queer Arts Festival  is a defiant response to that. ReGenerations , which opened July...

We met with the team on Sunday, and we’re excited to report that their creative juices have been flowing freely. They’ve spawned so much more material than we anticipated for this point in the workshopping process, that we realized the 8:30 start time for the performance was going to run...

Dear Queer Arts Family, Happy New Year! 2014 is a year of big changes at QAF. QAF offices have moved – from our East Van basement headquarters to a bright top floor loft in Gordon Neighbourhood House at Broughton and Comox. As we relocate from one Vancouver gaybourhood to the other, we are...

By  SD Holman Queer Arts Festival  |  March 17, 2014 Whats new at QAF? We’ve got some exciting news and changes this month, including a job posting, new staff, and exciting upcoming projects. Here’s what we have to share with you. Art changes people; people change the world Become a Pride...

We are now 7 days away from the opening night of the 2013 Queer Arts Festival:  TransgressionNow . Hope y’all are coming down to our  Art Party! Wednesday July 24 , from 7-10pm at the Roundhouse, because it’s gonna be a blast. The opening night gala is always a queer-tastic,...

RaNDoM acTS oF QueeRnNeSS, July 31 – August 18.   What are you most excited to see? The Visual Art Exhibits? Queer Theatre? Contemporary Dance? Cutting-edge musical premieres? Or off-the-wall variety shows?! Maybe you want to take in a workshop or two… Whatever your fancy, make sure you get your...

Holy guacamole,  TransgressionNow  opens in two weeks!! Tickets are already selling fast, so don’t wait or it might be too late. We have something for everyone: quirky contemporary dance, comic theatre, indie rock, gay sing-alongs, dramatic opera, and cutting-edge visual and new media art the likes of which even NYC...

Check out the complete QAF line-up online at  queerartsfestival.com Cutting-edge new media art, a gay pig-boy dance duet, gender bending performance art and the world premiere of a lesbian opera… where else can you find this spectrum of culture and entertainment but at the 6th annual  Queer Arts Festival  in...

Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival is anything but random The Queer Arts Festival (QAF) may be only five years old in its current incarnation, but it’s throwing a centenary birthday bash. The birthday boy, free-form experimental artist John Cage, will make a posthumous appearance along with his more structured contemporary Pierre...

Canadian Heritage funding victory! Most of you will be aware that the last month has been a roller coaster ride for us at QAF. In April, we received word from Canadian Heritage that they were withdrawing their funding of the 2013 festival. This came as a shock, without warning or...

QAF’s federal funding was cut by $44,000, without warning or explanation, just 3 months before the festival is due to start. We have asked the Minister of Canadian Heritage through a twitter campaign to restore our funding  – and it seems to be working! He’s promised to take a second look at...

This year QAF lost $45,000 of federal funding, and regained $35,000 due to a groundswell of support. For the backstory, see our  previous post . Huge thank-yous to everyone who advocated on the festival’s behalf. This is YOUR victory! QAF Programming and Legacy Fund Help us fill QAF’s $10,000 funding...

Dear Minister Moore ; The Pride in Art Society has just received word that Canadian Heritage is withdrawing funding for the 2013 Queer Arts Festival (QAF), 3 months before QAF is scheduled to open. This is a devastating and startling blow to the festival, as Canadian Heritage has funded QAF...

AGM announcement This will serve as official notification to Pride in Art Society members of the forthcoming Annual General Meeting to be held on TUESDAY APRIL 30, 2013 at the Roundhouse Community Centre, Room B, 181 Roundhouse Mews (Pacific and Davie). 7pm. Exciting festival updates, sizzling financial reports, and getting...

QAF welcomes new staff The festival staff is growing! We have recently welcomed  Meagan Thomas  into the role of Administrative Assistant, and  Kathy Atkins  as our Volunteer Coordinator. Meagan is the Arts Director of CiTR radio, and a long time supporter of the arts. We are happy to have her...

Baby It’s Cold Outside… … but things are warming up here at QAF. Festival dates announced: July 31 – August 18, 2012 28 weeks to go! That might feel like a long way off, but soon enough the Queer Arts Festival will be upon us, presenting three incredible weeks of...

Queer Arts Festival celebrating queer art & artists July 31 – August 18, 2012 Birds do it, bees do it… February love-letter Spreadin’ the L.O.V.E. You know you love us. We know you love us. Make it ‘official’ by attending our AGM in April. So mark Tuesday April 10 down,...

Queer Arts Festival 2013: TransgressionNow July 24 – August 9 Welcome back! Summer may seem a long ways off, but the Festival team is already in full swing. So mark your calendars, because from July 24 – August 9, another incredibly diverse, cutting-edge, and exciting Queer Arts Festival is coming...

The Pride in Art Society's 2011 Annual General Meeting on April 19 was well-attended by board members, staff, artists and volunteers. Pride in Art is pleased to welcome Arli Nikkel as our newest board member! Returning board members have stepped up to new roles in the Executive: Joel Klein as...

The Pride in Art Society’s 2011 Annual General Meeting on April 19 was well-attended by board members, staff, artists and volunteers. Pride in Art is pleased to welcome Arli Nikkel as our newest board member! Returning board members have stepped up to new roles in the Executive: Joel Klein as...