New Delhi’s Adwait Singh curates the fest’s signature art exhibition under creative direction of QAF founding artistic director emeritus, SD Holman
BY GAIL JOHNSON, STIR VANCOUVER
Queer Arts Festival presents Vanishing Act in partnership with Centre A: International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, On Main Gallery, and Griffin Art Projects to July 8 at the Sun Wah Centre
AS THE 2022 Queer Arts Festival pulls into its final week, its flagship curated visual-arts exhibition has expanded into its fully realized installation.
Vanishing Act first opened at the start of this year’s fest in June, but the multi-floor exhibition has just expanded onto yet another level of the Sun Wah Centre within Centre A: Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, giving people the chance to experience the show in its entirety before the fest wraps up.
New Delhi-based curator Adwait Singh worked under creative direction of QAF founding artistic director emeritus, SD Holman, for Vanishing Act. The exhibition features nearly 20 artists spanning South Asia and its diaspora.
Vanishing Act brings people face-to-face with their own Frankensteins. Singh’s curation asks viewers to “behold the hulking vessel of modernity, where the only hope for a future is a ghostly one, the only inheritance a poisoned gift.”
“Through a survey of queer artistic practices from South Asia and beyond, the exhibition will bring forth apocalyptic-revelations about radical forms of hospitality, sociality and empathy that are fed by the consciousness of a catastrophic co-becoming,” Singh says in a release.
Featured artists include Andrew McPhail, Aryakrishnan Ramakrishnan, Areez Katki, Bassem Saad, Charan Singh & Sunil Gupta, Elektra KB, Fazal Rizvi, Hank Yan Agassi, Hiba Ali, Imaad Majeed, Omer Wasim, Renate Lorenz & Pauline Boudry, Renuka Rajiv, Shahana Rajani, Sharlene Bamboat, Syma Tariq & Sita Balani, Syrus Marcus Ware, and Vishal Jugedo.
More information is at QAF.