Author: prideinart
Jun 25 | 7pm | Closing Reception | Roundhouse Exhibition Hall | Free | ASL by request
Our familial festivities officially come to a close with friends, music, art — and local drag royalty The Darlings! Take a final stroll through Flavourcel’s CRAWL SPACE, thrill to music courtesy of DJ Ziggy Zaya, and experience an experimental drag troupe that CBC praises as “pushing the boundaries” and “turning conventional drag upside down.”
About The Darlings
The Darlings are a multidisciplinary, non-binary drag performance collective based in Musqueam, Squamish and Tseil-Waututh territory, colonially known as Vancouver, BC. Their work challenges the boundaries of conventional drag, and explores genderqueer, non-binary, and transgender experience through the use of movement, poetry, performance art, theatre, and immersive/interactive installation. The Darlings are Continental Breakfast (Chris Reed), Maiden China (Kendell Yan), PM (Desi Rekrut), and Rose Butch (Rae Takei).
Jun 23 | 2pm | Community Event | Roundhouse Community Centre, Room C | Free
Do you have under-utilized clothes and accessories? Are you on the hunt for some free, fab looks? Get those old clothes out of the closet and down to the Roundhouse on June 23 for our first ever QAF Clothing Swap! We’re looking for clothes that are clean, gently worn, and unscented. Clothes can be dropped off starting at 12:30pm — pro tip: drop off your clothes early and attend our free Curators Tour at 1pm in the Exhibition Hall; then join us in Room C for the clothing swap from 2 – 4pm! Don’t have clothes to bring? No problem, you’re still welcome to join in the swap! All remaining clothes will be donated to PACE Society. All clothing will be sorted by size, and all-gender change spaces will be provided.
Special thanks to Zhanger and Queer Inclusion for their guidance in organizing this event.
Jun 23 | 1pm | Visual Art Tour | Roundhouse Exhibition Hall | Free | ASL by request
Join members of Flavourcel as they give a guided tour of the CRAWL SPACE installation, providing artistic insights and a behind-the-screens glimpse on the nature of working jointly as an experimental animation collective.
ASL can be booked for this event.
Please email ben@queerartsfestival.com to arrange.
Flavourcel consists of 10 artists and animators originally brought together on the Unceded Coast Salish territories that work collaboratively to make short-form experimental animations that entertain the contemporary narrative of what animation is and can be, including GIFs, music videos, installations, print media, and more. Flavourcel is heavily settled in collective decision-making structures and aims to keep the collaborative spirit at the core of what they do. In other words; democratizing resources and prioritizing voices that are not so often heard. Many members are institutionally-trained animators who felt that the path often laid out for many emerging animators exists in the following binary: to be an independent auteur making animations alone in your basement or to join the animation industry. Both of these routes are limiting in their own ways. Flavourcel feels that it is important to re-introduce play into animation; the act of making doesn’t have to be so serious or so solitary, it’s always better when you bring your friends along!
QAF + Vancouver International Jazz Festival
Moor Mother
Jun 21 | 7pm | Music | Fortune Sound Club | Ticketed*
How do you engage the stunning, evocative, haunting gift that is Moor Mother’s latest album The Great Bailout? Only by following the trail of potent verbal and sonic poetry. Only by letting Moor Mother be your guide. Released March 8, The Great Bailout is Moor Mother aka Camae Ayewa’s ninth studio album, and third with ANTI- Records. Called “the poet laureate of the apocalypse,” by Pitchfork, Ayewa’s music contains multitudes of instruments, voices, and cacophony that take on themes of Afrofuturism, colonialism, commerce and collective memory with the forebearers of jazz, hip hop, and beat poetry in mind. Moor Mother shares a program with SUMAC. Presented in association with Coastal Jazz.
Please note this venue is stair access only. 19+. No refunds.
*Note: this event is not part of QAF’s Pay-What-You-Wish Program
DJ Paisley Eva
Jun 21 | 10:30pm | DJ Dance Party | Ocean Artworks | Free
Hailing from the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation village of Eslha7an, Ta7talíya Paisley Eva’s been filling local club, party, and festival dance floors with a high energy mix of obscure underground tracks and beloved classics for over ten years. Her choice, chance-taking selections are plucked from house, disco, new wave, pop, and whatever keeps people moving. This free DJ Dance Party is proudly presented in association with Coastal Jazz Society.
Parlour Panther
Jun 22 | 2:15pm | šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ Square – Vancouver Art Gallery North Plaza | Free
Parlour Panther bursts with irresistible charm, expressive emotional chemistry, and exceptional vocal and guitar skills. Frankie and Reidar, a trans non-binary couple, have been creating music together for 10 years. They made a splash in the Vancouver music scene with their 2018 debut Hot Magic, and followed that album’s success with Retrograde, recorded entirely in their home studio during the pandemic, and released to critical acclaim in 2021 on Coax Records. Now, with Saadi on synth and guitar and Jen on drums, the enchanting indie rockers are embarking on a new musical journey with the upcoming album BLOOM, an apt title for a band that’s always growing! Parlour Panther’s free outdoor event is presented in association with Coastal Jazz Society.
A Reading with Phanuel Antwi
Jun 20 | 6pm | Artist Talk | W Projects | Free
Join us at W Projects (555 Hamilton St.) for a public reading of On Cuddling: Loved to Death in the Racial Embrace with critically acclaimed artist and curator Phanuel Antwi. Ranging from the terrifying embrace of the slave ship’s hold to the racist encoding of “cuddly toys,” On Cuddling is a unique combination of essay and poetry that contends with the way racial violence is enacted through intimacy. This event is free and open to all. Presented in partnership with Or Gallery.
Please note: the venue of this event has changed. It takes place at W Projects, 555 Hamilton St.
About Phanuel Antwi
Phanuel Antwi is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literatures at UBC. In 2022 he was named Canada Research Chair in Black Arts and Epistemologies. He is an artist, curator, organiser concerned with race, poetics, movements, intimacy and struggle.
ASL can be booked for this event.
Please email ben@queerartsfestival.com to arrange.
QAF Film Night
Jun 18 | 7pm | Roundhouse Performance Hall | Pay-What-You-Wish
Join the QAF in the return of our beloved movie night with Trace Elements, a stirring program of short films curated by Kathleen Mullen highlighting queer filmmakers who consider the highs and lows of familial bonds. Familial ties in all their glory and angst are explored through these films that dive deep into what brings us together and tears us apart—ties that connect us, repel us, keep us, and bring us joy, and the ones we sometimes cut but that still leave an imprint.
In Meet the Sky by KJ Edwards two sisters find a new way to communicate by finding peace within their Indigenous traditions; Non-binary filmmaker Dinaly Tran draws parallels between their parents love and own transition in hi ading; Old memories and a present, untenable relationship is explored in Rylan Friday’s film The Sound of You Collapsing; In Plant Daddy, Phil’s love for a new plant spins out of control as he avoids visiting his dying father; In Lauren Marsen’s Tabanca home is missed and found from within a memory of a beautiful and powerful dance; and lastly friendship and performance is nurtured in Little Sky by Jess X. Snow after a chance meeting with Sky’s estranged father.
Preceding Trace Elements will be a special pre-show screening of a collection of freshly commissioned short films from the QAF family of filmmakers, including Zachery Longboy, lisa g, Alex Gibson, Romi Kim, the Flavourcel Animation Collective, and Benjamin Siegl, and the entire event will be followed by a post-screening talk-back with Kathleen and a few of the filmmakers.
About Kathleen Mullen
Kathleen Mullen (she/her) has contributed to the planning of film festivals nationally and internationally as curator, programmer, and festival director. Kathleen enjoys watching different genres and styles of films and is currently programming for Seattle International Film Festival, Vancouver Latin American Film Festival, Vancouver Queer Film Festival, Frameline: San Francisco LGBTQ+ Film Festival, and others. She teaches two student-led festivals, Skoden Indigenous Film Festival at Simon Fraser University and Lesley University Independent Film Festival. For 9 years, she led the programming and operations as Festival Director of the Seattle Queer Film Festival.
Artists
KJ Edwards
Dinaly Tran
Rylan Friday
James Cooper with writers Izad Etemadi and Lauren Holfeuer
Jess X. Snow
Lauren Marsden
Jun 17 – 29 | Tues – Sat | 12 – 6pm | The James Black Gallery | Free
Please note this venue is stair access only.
Established way back in 1998, the then-named Pride in Art Community Show was the event that started it all. Over the years the name and location have changed, but the spirit remains the same: showcasing and celebrating the outstanding artists and artwork from our local 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. The QAF Community Art Show returns in full form to the James Black Gallery; join us for the opening revelries at the JBG on June 17 from 7 – 10pm.
Participating Artists:
Alexandra Caprara
Allison Kiernan
Ava Katz
Brie Watson
D Feakes
Dana Ayotte
Edzi’u
Jack Page
Kaila Bhullar
Maya U Schueller Elmes
Pedram Penhan
Rachel Warwick & A. Branch
Sam Kaplan
Sus Cho – Bear Barnetson
Suze Shore
Vee CR (@v.chorabik) & Lily Flanjak
Wilson S. Wilson
Daniela Guerrero-Rodriguez
Presented in partnership with the James Black Gallery.
Little Dollhouse on the Prairie
Jun 15 & 16 | 7pm | Roundhouse Performance Hall | Pay-What-You-Wish
Brought to you by Elle Barbara, avant-garde creator and Mother of Montreal’s Idiosyncratic House of Barbara, Ayibobo III: Little Dollhouse on the Prairie is a work of high-octane performance art, merging dance with experimental soundscapes. Drawing audiences into a kinetic and spiritual vortex of pop culture and Haitian Voodoo, Ayibobo III explores the intersections of Black and queer identity. Ballroom performers embody a dizzying range of figures, from Tyra Banks to loas from Haitian spirituality, bridging contemporary and ancestral understandings of gender and sexuality and gender.
Ayibobo III: Little Dollhouse on the Prairie is a co-production between the frank theatre, Danse Cité, and House of Barbara, presented by Queer Arts Festival.
Directed by Elle Barbara
Starring – Christen M. Barbara, Syana O. Barbara
Special guests – Kim Ninkuru, Rony F. 007
Jon Cleveland – Lighting design + Technical direction
Markus Lake – Sound design
Marilène Bastien – Costumes
Micaela Alleyne – Makeup
Emile Pineault – Production
About Elle Barbara
Elle Barbara is a Montréal-based avant-garde singer-songwriter, song selector (TS Ellise), pinup, speaker, writer, director, curator, performance artist and intervention worker whose musical output combines elements of soul, psychedelia, jazz, and underground. A lover of the odd, dark, or overlooked elements in pop music, Elle rose from artist-run spaces at the turn of the 2010s and has seen their work soar to enduring acclaim. In recent years, Elle Barbara has centred efforts around trans and queer community organizing, including contributions in Montréal’s emerging ballroom scene as the Iconic Mother of the Idiosyncratic Meta House of Barbara. The House of Barbara, in addition to throwing balls, is a collective whose transdisciplinary practice encompasses performance, activism and DJing. Elle’s current musical incarnation (Elle Barbara’s Black Space) aims to centre intersectional Blackness and reject anti-Black tropes within the city’s art and music spaces.
Premieres online Jun 14 | Podcast | Free
Welcome, neighbour, to our gaybourhood.
Listen to Episode One of In Our Gaybourhood
QAF’s first-ever podcast, In Our Gaybourhood is a journey through the communities of BC, meeting our neighbours who work towards a world where everyone can be proud of who they are. In its first season, we get to know some of the 2SLGBTQIA+ advocates, educators, and students who help our schools grow into spaces where everyone can belong. Just like our neighbourhoods, each podcast episode is filled with the spirit of care, the energy of activism, and the warmth of community. Hosted by artist, activist and educator JC Fung 思慧, In Our Gaybourhood premieres online on June 14.
About JC Fung 思慧
JC Fung 思慧 (they/them) is a creative technologist, educator, and researcher, originally from Tkaronto (Toronto, ON) and now living in K’emk’emeláy (Vancouver, BC). Recent artistic collaborations feature themes of liminality, decolonization, and technology, and have been shown at Come Up to My Room, Malaspina Printmakers, Cranbrook Art Museum, and Vancouver Art Gallery.
As a queer, trans, and non-binary person of the Chinese diaspora, their work centers the experiences of people and communities that find individual and collective meaning in the between spaces. Trained as a scientist and engineer, they explore divestment from exploitative technologies and advocate for inclusive, ethical, and anti-oppressive practices.
Transgender Augmented Reality and Poems of Presence
Jun 14 – 25 | Augmented Reality | Roundhouse Community Centre | Free
STEALTH CODES is an exhibition featuring the works of Angelic Goldsky and queer community artists, crafted in collaborative workshop sessions merging poetry with augmented reality (AR). This exhibition explores digital transgender truth-telling, that is hidden in plain sight, while confronting the absence of queer transgender life affirmation online.
Through the use of AR, STEALTH CODES brings hidden queer signals and poetic expressions into sharp focus, challenging cisnormative perspectives. Inspired by texts like Lisa Blackman’s ‘Haunted Data’ and Donna J. Haraway’s ‘Cyborg Manifesto,’ the exhibition delves into themes of queer futurity, imaginative possibilities of queer and trans cyber-utopia, and hidden, yet deeply present, queer life online, through features like plane-tracking and body-tracking that reveal digital objects, poems and portals otherwise unseen.
The AR installations present both coded and uncoded expressions of queer and transgender existence and poems.
About Angelic Goldsky
Angelic Goldsky [t(he?)y] is a queer trans multi-disciplinary artist working at the crossroads of spoken word, media art, music, and magic for transmuting complex trauma into rhythm, release, and ultimately, permanent liberation. Grounded in poetry and truth-telling, their work transcends discipline and medium, fostering exploration beyond binaries with playfulness and ritual. Formerly the Poet in Residence at the Roundhouse Community Centre (2021), they have performed and shared their cine-poems internationally and across Turtle Island alongside fellow clowns, members of the LGBTQ+ community, low femme priestesses, rabbis, and politicians.
STEALTH CODES is presented in partnership with the Roundhouse Community Centre.
Flavourcel Animation Collective: QAF 2024 Artists in Residence
Jun 14 – 25 | 9am – 9pm M-F, 9am – 5pm Sat & Sun | Curated Visual Art Exhibition | Roundhouse Exhibition Hall | Free
QAF invites the Flavourcel animation collective out of the basement and into the CRAWL SPACE as both curators and exhibiting artists of the festival’s signature Curated Visual Art Exhibition at the Roundhouse Exhibition Hall. CRAWL SPACE reflects on the festival theme of “The Ties that Bind” by queering the physical framework most emblematic of domesticity—the family home. Combining projection, experimental animation techniques, and interactive installation, visitors are invited to tour the rooms of Flavourcel’s “house” built upon a foundation of community-care and collective art-making.
Artist Statement
This is our family home. Our ancestors built this house — this is our inheritance.
May we direct your attention to wood floors made of fir with a fine red stain.
Feel free to browse our collection of aged spirits and fermented treats.
Look here — a crack in the foundation. That breeze you feel is our collective breath building moisture in the drywall.
CRAWL SPACE represents the space between walls. It calls to attention the hidden, where things are forgotten and where they are discovered. To be queer is to make homes out of scraps, to continually build and rebuild. The lives we lead are anchored by family – the ones who were lost and the ones who were found.
This show asks you to walk through surreal installations of constructed home life. As queer people, we fill our homes with our closest ties, tables abundant with food to share, and secret spaces to commune with our deepest most hidden desires. CRAWL SPACE is forming in Flavourcel’s 6th year of collaboration. As our positions and lives shift and change, we are continually interested in the domestic and mundane methods of community building, and the long-term commitments of collective art-making. The house and home is a theme we have worked through before in other works. In working through the theme “the ties that bind” we ruminate on the bonds that we build and preserve in community.
About Flavourcel
Flavourcel consists of 10 artists and animators originally brought together on the Unceded Coast Salish territories that work collaboratively to make short-form experimental animations that entertain the contemporary narrative of what animation is and can be, including GIFs, music videos, installations, print media, and more. Flavourcel is heavily settled in collective decision-making structures and aims to keep the collaborative spirit at the core of what they do. In other words; democratizing resources and prioritizing voices that are not so often heard. Many members are institutionally-trained animators who felt that the path often laid out for many emerging animators exists in the following binary: to be an independent auteur making animations alone in your basement or to join the animation industry. Both of these routes are limiting in their own ways. Flavourcel feels that it is important to re-introduce play into animation; the act of making doesn’t have to be so serious or so solitary, it’s always better when you bring your friends along!
Flavourcel is:
Alia Hijaab
Chhaya Naran
Chris Strickler
gil goletski
Harlo Martens
Josh Neu
Julia Song
Kat G Morris
Lana Connors
Laurel Pucker
Jun 14 | 7pm – 10pm | Gala Opening Reception | Roundhouse Exhibition Hall | Pay-What-You-Wish | ASL by request
Nothing says “We Are Family” like our annual ArtParty! We kick off our presence at the Roundhouse Community Centre with art, conviviality, and a celebration of our 17th Queer Arts Festival! This evening also sees the launch of our visual art exhibition, CRAWL SPACE, by the 10-member animation collective Flavourcel. Fabulous food, refreshing sips, do-it-yourself-printmaking, and irresistible spins by the one and only DJ O Show will have you feeling the feels with all your fellow Queerdos!
ASL can be booked for this event.
Please email ben@queerartsfestival.com to arrange.
A photo exhibit of 2SLGBTQIA+ youths’ substance use, homelessness, and resiliencies
Jun 10 – 29 | Tues – Sat 12pm – 6pm | SUM gallery | Free
This must-see exhibition showcases photography from over 60 2SLGBTQIA+ youth who participated in UBC research studies on drug use. These young artists, aged 14 – 29, have created a body of work that largely centres around identity, substance use, housing, and mental health – the results are powerful and challenging, providing a visual snapshot of how 2SLGBTQIA+ youth grapple with these issues. Participation in these research studies was confidential and the artists consented to these photographs being shared, with many adopting pseudonyms or fake names. Coordinated by university researchers Christian Barborini and Trevor Goodyear, together with the Substance Use Beyond the Binary Youth Action Committee, Queer Eyes, Queer Lives offers a visual reflection of how 2SLGBTQIA+ youth in Vancouver are building homes and lives of substance for themselves despite overlapping injustices faced. Queer Eyes, Queer Lives is generously supported by the University of British Columbia, Cannapix, the Canadian Institute of Health Research, and British Columbia Centre on Substance Use.
About the Artists
The Substance Use Beyond the Binary Youth Action Committee is a group of nine transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming youth who use(d) substances. Members include Alec N, Apollo Colin-Gray, Charlie, Evergreen, Mazal J, P.T., Reid G, Rio B, and Toby. The committee was established in 2022 and is co-led by University of British Columbia researchers Christian Barborini (they/them) and Trevor Goodyear (he/him). Their work together embraces the power of Queer worldmaking in producing more emancipatory approaches to research and advocacy within the realm of substance use, mental health, and housing. They prioritize community voices and mobilize engaging and creative research methods such as participatory photography.
Jun 1 – 30 | Wed-Sun, 12-5pm | Malaspina Printmakers, Granville Island | Free
Exhibition Opening:
June 1, 6 – 10pm
Taking its title from the printmaking technique where an artist alters individual prints within a greater edition to create a series of similar, but uniquely distinct artworks, “Varied Editions” brings together a collection of Queer printmakers showcasing the ever-evolving diversity and queerness of the printmaking community. Curated by Cheryl Hamilton and Edward Fu-Chen Juan, this show features the work of 12 artists, reflecting the remarkable breadth and diversity of practices within the medium. With roots planted in artist-to-artist collaboration and collective knowledge sharing as well as a significant historical connection to progressive movements and activism, printmaking provides a fertile ground to explore the festival theme of Queer family. Presented in partnership with Malaspina Printmakers.
Join us for the exhibition opening at Malaspina Printmakers, Granville Island location, on
June 1 from 6 – 10pm.
FEATURING
Moozhan Ahmadzadegan
Eloisa Aquino
Jenie Gao
Chêne Gladu
Brent Haddow
Tajliya Jamal
Jenny Lin
Terra Poirier
Luca Cara Seccafien
Carrielynn Victor (Xémontalot)
Cheryl Hamilton
Edward Fu-Chen Juan
June 29 | 10am – 2pm
Queer Activism: Screenprint and Zine Workshop
With Cheryl Hamilton
