Author: prideinart

Visual art exhibition curated by Jonathan D. Katz and Conor Moynihan.

At the centre of this year’s festival is Drama Queer: seducing social change, a visual art exhibition curated by Jonathan D. Katz. This exhibition explores the role of emotion in contemporary queer art as a form of political practice. As a mechanism to coalesce feelings and direct them with activist intent, emotion is increasingly central to much contemporary work. This exhibition places the queer use of emotion into a historical frame, arguing that the solicitation of an emotional response has been of central import at least since the 1960s, as underscored by critics from Frank O’Hara to Jill Johnston to Gene Swenson.

While much of the art world foregrounded formal innovation, leaving the nakedly emotional unacknowledged, even unseen, queers have long championed the emotional in contradistinction to the formal. A means to challenge the dominant formal values so often elevated by critics, while undercutting anti-expressive postmodernist tenets, emotion had the added value of returning the field of art-making to the socio-political present. With the advent of AIDS, this emotional undercurrent grew in force and power, challenging the equanimity of dominant culture in the face of holocaust. Nakedly manipulative, this earlier queer art sought to move the viewer into action.

Drama Queer solicits a range of contemporary work towards understanding how feelings function in our political present, and the different facets of art and emotion — political emotion, erotic emotion etc. Centred around three never before exhibited monumental paintings by Attila Richard Lukacs, this exhibition will explore art that seeks to engender social change through making the viewer an accomplice, queering their perspective or seducing them into seeing the world from a dissident vantage point.

Visual artists: Del LaGrace Volcano, Angela Grossmann,Monica Majoli, Attila Richard Lukacs, Kent Monkman, Andreas Fuchs, Vika Kirchenbauer, Zanele Muholi, Zackary Drucker, Laura Aguilar,Cassils, Andrew Holmquist, Keijaun Thomas, Shan Kelley, Joey Terrill, Carl Pope, Vincent Tiley, Sean Fader, 2Fik, Laura Aguilar, Bill Jacobson, Rudy Lemcke, Jesse Finley Reed, George Steeves.

QAF is delighted to welcome Jonathan D. Katz and Conor Moynihan as curators for 2016’s visual art exhibition Drama Queer: seducing social change. Katz was the first full-time American academic to be tenured in the field of gay and lesbian studies, and his work as curator, scholar, and activist has had a profound impact on the understanding of queer art and artists in both academia and the larger world. He is best known for co-curating Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in 2010, the first openly queer exhibition at a major US museum. He also founded the Harvey Milk Institute, the largest queer studies institute in the world. Katz currently directs the doctoral program in Visual Studies at the University at Buffalo and serves as the president of the Leslie Lohman Museum in New York City.

Life Drawing with HIM is an informal, drop-in drawing and sketching social group for men.

For one night only, Life Drawing with HIM is collaborating with the Queer Arts Festival to bring this popular drop-in session to the queer arts community. All skill levels, orientations, and genders welcome. This group is facilitated, but no formal instruction is offered.

Bring your sketchbook and favourite drawing materials (no ink or paint please). Workshop
starts promptly, so please arrive on time.

Queer Arts Festival: Curator tour and Salon

Join festival Artistic Director and Curator of this year’s exhibition SD Holman for an informal tour of this year’s Drawing the Line exhibition, followed by a salon co-hosted by Daily Xtra managing editor Robin Perelle, who will ask participants where they draw the line today, and why. Which lines, if any, are you reluctant to cross? In an age of online social shaming and increasingly common “trigger warnings,” have some lines become too intimidating to challenge?

3pm. Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews.

By donation.

TRIGGER: Drawing the Line in 2015.
Visual Artists:

Afuwa
Aiyyana Maracle
Amy Dame
Bryan Bone
Claude Perreault
Coral Short
Dana Ayotte
Emilio Rojas
James Diamond
Jonny Sopotiuk
Jono Nobles
Kathy Atkins
Kiss & Tell: Lizard Jones, Persimmon Blackbridge, Susan Stewart
Persimmon Blackbridge
Rosamond Norbury
Storme Webber
Suzo Hickey
Toni Latour

Coming with a friend or 3? Get a QAF Flex-Pass. Go to 4 shows, take a friend to two shows, bring a group to one show – at only $69 for a pass, it’s a screamin’ deal.

This event is scent-reduced, and fully wheelchair accessible. For more information on how to support a scent-reduced event.

For a full accessibility audit of the space, visit Radical Access Mapping Project.

QAF’s Pre-festival Fluffer! Back for their second incendiary season, Cor Flammae presents FALLEN ANGELS: sacred + profane choral works by historical and modern queer composers.

The rich religious traditions of choral music mean a participant must confront sacred spaces which have historically defined the queer body as profane, obscene and unholy. Cor Flammae explores this tension by producing two concerts in seemingly opposing spaces, inviting audiences to experience choral music in a space for which it was intended (a church), or in a historically queer space (a social playspace), to see how the works resonate differently.

The choir is thrilled to be led by 2015 Guest Conductor, Stephen Smith.

Coming with a friend or 3? Get a QAF Flex-Pass. Go to 4 shows, take a friend to two shows, bring a group to one show – or any combination! Only $69/$35 for a pass, it’s a screamin’ deal.

QAF pass-holders can reserve seats on queerartsfestival.com or Facebook up to 8 hours before the show. Or live dangerously and show up when the box office opens 30 minutes before showtime. To claim your tickets, please present ID and your valid pass.

QAF Flex-Pass valid for the July 17 Cor Flammae show at St. Andrew’s Wesley. Maximum 2 tickets per pass for this show. PASS ONLY VALID FOR THE JULY 17th SHOW.

Buy a QAF Flex-Pass

To buy tickets for July 18:

Buy Tickets Jul 18

To buy single tickets for July 17 or reserve pass-holder seats:

Buy Jul 17/reserve seats

The Pride in Art Society is a registered charity, and will issue tax receipts for all donations of $20 or more. Please consider adding a donation to your ticket purchase, or donate through ​canadahelps.org.

Wed Jul 29 & Aug 5 | 6pm

Explore your identity through movement in this Dance Out Loud workshop with Kinesis Dance somatheatro.

This workshop is for all those who wish to share and celebrate who they are! Explore your identity through movement in a comfortable, fun and supportive environment with Paras Terezakis and members of Kinesis Dance somatheatro.

To register, click HERE

We’d really like it and it would make our lives easier if you would register – but if ya just can’t, come on down and you can drop in, as long as it’s not full.

The Pride in Art Society is a registered charity, and will issue tax receipts for all donations of $20 or more. Please consider adding a donation to your ticket purchase, or donate through ​canadahelps.org.

This event is scent-reduced, and fully wheelchair accessible. For more information on how to support a scent-reduced event, please visit PeggyMunson.com

For a full accessibility audit of the space, visit Radical Access Mapping Project.

Co-presented with Kinesis Dance somatheatro and MACHiNENOiSY

Queer contemporary dance with Kinesis Dance somatheatro and MACHiNENOiSY’s youth dance intensive.

PROX:IMITY RE:MIX & NIGHT
Two dance companies two dance shows
PROX:IMITY RE:MIX is the culmination of a 2-week process in which contemporary dance company MACHiNENOiSY offers skill building in dance, theatre and new media and highlights the unique identities and talents of local youth (ages 15-24). Our late teens and early 20s are often a time of uncertainty and self-identification. We struggle to figure out who we are, who we want to be and how we can embody that to the world. PROX:IMITY RE:MIX is a physical dialogue that explores notions of gender and identity using the human body as an instrument to challenge the roles it has traditionally represented. These ideas are explored through a setting that combines technology, new media and music. Instead of focusing on the limits of body and gender, PROX:IMITY RE:MIX reminds us of what our bodies are capable of when freed from traditional expectations.

NIGHT
As night falls, another world awakens. With less light, even more of our inner selves is revealed. The innate fear of darkness is quelled by a fearlessness to try new things, to act on our impulses and express our desires.
“NIGHT’ explores universal aspects of life after dark – the freedom, the fun and the fears built into the cultural fabric of our society. the work is edgy, highly physical and very much today.

Buy TicketsComing with a friend or 3? Get a QAF Flex-Pass. Go to 4 shows, take a friend to two shows, bring a group to one show – At only $69 for a pass, it’s a screamin’ deal. QAF pass-holders can reserve seats on queerartsfestival.com or Facebook until up to 8 hours before the show. Or live dangerously and show up when the box office opens 30 minutes before showtime. To claim your tickets, please present ID and your valid pass. Buy a QAF Flex-Pass

The Pride in Art Society is a registered charity, and will issue tax receipts for all donations of $20 or more. Please consider adding a donation to your ticket purchase, or donate through ​canadahelps.org.

This event is scent-reduced, and fully wheelchair accessible. For more information on how to support a scent-reduced event, please visit PeggyMunson.com

For a full accessibility audit of the space, visit Radical Access Mapping Project.

Workshop (2 days): Saturday and Sunday, July 25 and 26

10:30 am to 1:30 pm

A Writing Workshop for transgressive voices led by author Amber Dawn, Tough Language, Tender Wisdoms invites participants to write under-told and boundary-pushing stories from their personal experience, and to develop strategies to creating safe and celebratory spaces for these stories to be crafted. Hosted by Queer Arts Festival for three years running, this year’s Tough Language, Tender Wisdoms will focus on crafting the Personal Essay – a writing form that combines memoir, light research, and creatively communicating values and identity.

Amber Dawn will use source material from her book “How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir” and select other text to lead participants through a series of free-writing exercises, small group work, craft and structure exercises and discussion. Participants should come prepared to share, listen and take risks.

AMBER DAWN is a writer living on unceded Indigenous land belonging to the Coast Salish peoples. Her debut poetry collection Where the words end and my body begins launched this spring 2015. Her memoir How Poetry Saved My Life: A Hustler’s Memoir traverses themes of sex work and survival, and won the 2013 Vancouver Book Award. She is the author of the Lambda Award-winning novel Sub Rosa, and editor of the anthologies Fist of the Spider Women: Fear and Queer Desire and With A Rough Tongue. She currently teaches Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia and Douglas College, as well as outside the classroom through a series of free and/or low-barrier community classes.
www.amberdawnwrites.com

PLEASE NOTE: This is a progressive writing workshop. Pre-registration with an EMAIL contact is critical. Space is limited to 16 participants; only register if you can participate in both classes. Please check that dates and time carefully to ensure you can commit.

PLEASE NOTE: 6 of the 16 available spots will be reserved for new participants, who have never attended a workshop with Amber Dawn at Queer Arts Festival

Intended outcomes: a DRAFT of a 1,000 to 2,000 word personal essay
Requirements: Access to email and ability to read PDF documents online. Students must sign up with an email address. There will be some Pre and Post workshop required readings to participate.
During the workshop, students only need pen and paper – laptop or “pad” device optional.
Workshop time: 2.5 hrs + ½ hour debrief time, per class. 6 hours total
$50 to $250 sliding scale, please support art and pay as much as you can afford

Buy Tickets

This event is scent-reduced, and fully wheelchair accessible. For more information on how to support a scent-reduced event, please visit PeggyMunson.com For a full accessibility audit of the space, visit Radical Access Mapping Project.

Co-presented with Access to Music Foundation

Prepare to be dazzled by the extraordinary talent of young queer and allied singer/songwriters from our fabulous QSONG workshop. With mentors Sarah Wheeler and Ellen Marple.

Buy Tickets / Reserve Seats

Coming with a friend or 3? Get a QAF Flex-Pass. Go to 4 shows, take a friend to two shows, bring a group to one show – at only $69 for a pass, it’s a screamin’ deal.

This event is scent-reduced, and fully wheelchair accessible. For more information on how to support a scent-reduced event, please visit PeggyMunson.com

For a full accessibility audit of the space, visit Radical Access Mapping Project.

Gallery hours: 12PM – 9PM weekdays; 11AM – 4PM weekends

QAF’s curated exhibition honours the 25th anniversary of Kiss & Tell’s legendary exhibition, Drawing the Line. 19 participating artists challenge, provoke and push boundaries. What sets you off?

Curated by SD Holman
Artists –

Kiss & Tell: Lizard Jones, Persimmon Blackbridge, Susan Stewart
Afuwa Aiyyana Maracle Amy Dame Bryan Bone Claude Perreault Coral Short Dana Ayotte Emilio Rojas James Diamond Jonny Sopotiuk Jono Nobles Kathy Atkins Persimmon Blackbridge Rosamond Norbury Storme Webber Suzo Hickey Toni Latour

In the article on “Gay and Lesbian Art” in the Oxford Art Online, one exhibition is singled out as best embodying the spirit of queer arts: the 1990 project Drawing the Line by the Vancouver collective Kiss & Tell. In this project, Susan Stewart photographed her colleagues Persimmon Blackbridge and Lizard Jones, and women viewers were given markers to draw lines on the walls at the point at which the increasingly explicit imagery became unacceptable to them. Audiences, however, responded in a decidedly non-linear way, and impassioned debates flowered on the walls around the images. Drawing the Line toured internationally and had an enormous influence – it is not uncommon for lesbians of a certain age to say this exhibition “changed my life.”
Twenty-five years later, QAF honours this epochal piece of Canadian queer heritage with a retrospective show of the original images, together with a curated exhibition in which artists are asked for contemporary responses to this pivotal exhibition. In 2015, our lines in the sand are very different than in 1990. In an age when the internet has made pornography ubiquitous, the feminist firebombings of Red Hot Video stores that triggered Drawing the Line now seem very far away. Even the distinction of asking women to write on the walls while men were invited to write in a comments book, relatively simple in 1990, would be unthinkable in today’s queer communities, in which the gender binary is increasingly questioned. However, this is not to say we no longer draw our battle lines: today, it is common in our community for “Trigger Warnings” to be placed prior to texts or performances, to warn viewers of content they might find offensive, uncomfortable, or “triggering” of past trauma. The contemporary artists curated into this show will be asked what Kiss & Tell’s project triggers in them, and how they see themselves pushing boundaries today.

Coming with a friend or 3? Get a QAF Flex-Pass. Go to 4 shows, take a friend to two shows, bring a group to one show – at only $69 for a pass, it’s a screamin’ deal.

This event is scent-reduced, and fully wheelchair accessible. For more information on how to support a scent-reduced event, please visit PeggyMunson.com For a full accessibility audit of the space, visit Radical Access Mapping Project.