2021: Dispersed It's not easy being green

Curated by Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour + SD Holman

QAF shows artists upcycling & recycling apocalyptic fear & dread into art & social change. Green symbolizes not only our relationship to each other & the lands we occupy, but also difference & marginalization, exemplified by popular culture green underdogs Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West & Rainbow Connection, Kermit the Frog. It’s not easy being green, fighting for a world that consistently rejects us. With imminent climate catastrophe upon us, we witness the world grappling with the end times, but when were the queered privy to life outside the apocalypse?

Green is the complex terrain of extended kinship ties of Indigiqueer/two-spirit and queer settlers. Green spectrals haunt the hyphened margins of the subaltern; enduring perpetually frequent gaslighting(s) of post-traumatic settler-colonial and concurrent disorders. Together/apart WE endure our own private apocalyptics. Cataclysmic temporal end-points that exist as seemingly fixed and an unavoidable global terminus – from which Indigiqueer/queer resurgence erupts relentlessly into the ongoing colonial.

QAF shows artists cast as see-ers/oracles/alchemists upcycling/rebranding/reclaiming/transgressing/transforming apocalyptic visions towards queer utopic landscapes, transmuting fear, dread and a collective broken heart of forced disslocations with departures and arrivals, using art as transformative praxis and practice towards social and spiritual metamorphoses.

2021 Events

Sun Oct 24 | 5pm Transdisciplinary music performance | Mountain View Cemetery Rising from the ashes of this summer’s fire ban , QAF and Full Circle: First Nations Performance will reignite our Piano Burning event on Sunday, October 24 at Mountain View Cemetery. Curated by SD Holman and Margo Kane,...

Sat July 24 | 7- 10 pm Festival Opening | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer ArtParty! returns in-person for the first time since 2019! Regarded as one of Vancouver’s best-attended visual art events, ArtParty! marks the opening night of QAF’s signature Curated Visual Art Exhibition and kicks off it’s...

QAF 2021 dispersed:

it's not easy being green Jul 24 - Aug 13, 2021 QAF shows artists upcycling & recycling apocalyptic fear & dread into art & social change. Green symbolizes not only our relationship to each other & the lands we occupy, but also difference & marginalization, exemplified by popular culture green...

Sat Jul 24 - Fri Aug 13 , from 12 – 6pm Visual Art Exhibition | Sun Wah 268 Keefer, Lower Ground Floor Featured Artists: Beric Manywounds Blake Angeconeb Chad Baba Duane Isaac Falak Vasa Grace House Ho Tam Isaac Murdoch Jay Pahre Kali Spitzer Katherine Atkins Kathleen Ross Manuel...

Sat Jul 24- Fri Aug 13 Sonic Installation | around False Creek & Online Language as a Virus: Queer Isolation Stories is an interactive multi-platform sonic-art installation from artist Bobbi Kozinuk, featuring publicly broadcasted radio programming around the False Creek area as well as online. Combining music, sound art, and...

Mon Jul 26 | 5 pm Audio Art Tour | Roundhouse Community Arts Centre Roundabout Join artist Bobbi Kozinuk in an exploration of her work, Language as a Virus: Queer Isolation Stories . Language as a Virus: Queer Isolation Stories is an interactive multi-platform sonic-art installation from artist Bobbi Kozinuk, featuring...

Tue Jul 27, 5pm Visual Art Tour | Sun Wah 268 Keefer, Lower Ground Floor Come together for our Visual Art Tour of our exhibition it's not easy being green , with the curators Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour and SD Holman + guest artists. var exampleCallback = function() { console.log('Order complete!'); };...

Sat Jul 31 | 9 pm Media Art Screening | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer Rooftop Curated by QAF Associate Artistic Director Fergie and Programs Coordinator Ben! Rooftop screening of edutainment for the pandemic — very queer and rather green short films. var exampleCallback = function() { console.log('Order complete!'); };...

Mon Aug 2 | 8 pm Literary Readings | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer Rooftop Curated by Josie Boyce , slip into a little green something and enjoy readings by Vancouverite writers. var exampleCallback = function() { console.log('Order complete!'); }; window.EBWidgets.createWidget({ // Required widgetType: 'checkout', eventId: '159891729467', iframeContainerId: 'eventbrite-widget-container-159891729467',...

Sat Aug 7 | 8 pm Dance and Music Performance | Mountain View Cemetery *NEW* ONLINE | Tue Aug 10 | 24 hours When Japanese folk tradition meets punk, audience members are invited to commune with the ancestors via Obon dance, song, sensu (fan) cheerleading, fue, shamisen and kick-ass taiko....

Fri Aug 13 | 7 - 10pm Closing Party | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer Rooftop Join us for the festival closing with DJ O Show and your last chance to see all the art @ QAF 2021with us at the Sun Wah Centre, from the basement, to the...

Sat Jul 24 - Fri Aug 13 Community Art Showcase | Online The digital culmination of the Kindred Spirits digital artist residency run by and for 2Spirit and Indigiqueer artists. Guided by Faculty members Dayna Danger , DJ O Show , Raven Davis and Art Auntie Shane Sable , this...

Sat July 24 - Fri Aug 13, daily from 12 – 6pm Visual Art | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer , 4th Floor The exhibition is open to the public and free to view in the SUM gallery (4th floor) of the Sun Wah Centre for the duration of...

Wed Jul 28 | 7:30 pm Workshop | SUM gallery or Online Falak Vasa leads us in a pillow-making workshop, based off of their own series of pillows created during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic offering small comforts that are controllable. This event is ASL Interpreted. var exampleCallback = function() {...

Thu Aug 5 & Fri Aug 6 | 7pm Workshop | Online "Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." ~ JBS Haldane in his 1927 essay, Possible Worlds In this two-part interactive workshop we will explore...

Phase 1 of Mass Reincarnation of Wish Fragments 願片大量転生 (Ganhen Tairyou Tensei) Workshop | Wed Aug 4, 6pm | SUM gallery & Online With Artists: Naoko Fukumaru and Eva Wong An ancient Japanese folk tale promises that anyone who folds 1000 paper cranes will have their wish answered by the...