QAF 2023: Queers in Space

June 17 – 28 | Queer Arts Festival | Roundhouse Community Centre, SUM gallery, James Black Gallery, VAG North Plaza

Futurism and fantasy have always been cornerstones of the 2SLGBTQIA+ experience. What better place to manifest ourselves as the free and empowered superbeings we truly are? For many queer people, the Future is a place where dreams are realized; for others, it’s a vital sanctuary from a present-day reality that does not include them. While “Queers in Space” may evoke cosmic camp and otherworldly voyages (and this festival gleefully delivers both), we take these words very seriously as well: this is just as much a call to explore and celebrate the space we occupy, each and every day; to honour our queer elders on whose shoulders we stand; and to celebrate our future, queer trajectories.

ArtParty!  

Sat Jun 17 | 7pm Roundhouse Exhibition Hall – 181 Roundhouse Mews Join us as QAF 2023: Queers in Space officially launches into orbit! This year, ArtParty! returns to the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre’s Exhibition Hall for the first time since 2019. Party amidst our signature Visual Art…

bumfuzzled monachopsis: innerspace out

Curated Visual Art Exhibition Sat Jun 17 – Wed Jun 28  Mon – Fri 9am – 9pm Sat – Sun 9am – 5pm Roundhouse Exhibition Hall – 181 Roundhouse Mews ———— Zandi Dandizette , Curator bumfuzzled monachopsis: innerspace out Free Guided Curator Tour with Zandi Dandizette Sat Jun 24 ,…

Cosmic Connections: Queer Indigenous Astronomy (A View From Above and Below)

 Preston Buffalo AR works Sat Jun 17 – Wed Jun 2 8 9am to 9pm daily Roundhouse Exhibition Hall – 181 Roundhouse Mews Augmented Reality artist Preston Buffalo secretly brings the Roundhouse to life with Indigiqueer pasts and futures – including a creation story of how the Cree People originated…

Love After the End: Joshua Whitehead & Friends

QAF + Talking Stick Festival: a day in celebration of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Artists Sun Jun 18 | 3pm  Free cinq-à-sept reception to follow at 5pm Roundhouse Performance Centre – 181 Roundhouse Mews Joshua Whitehead, Curator Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction is an…

Virago Nation Burlesque

QAF + Talking Stick Festival: a day in celebration of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Artists Sun Jun 18 | 7pm Roundhouse Performance Centre – 181 Roundhouse Mews Our day-long slate of events centred on Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer art concludes with breathtaking burlesque brought to you by the badass babes of Virago…

Queers in Space: Pride in Art Community Show

Mon Jun 19 – Sat Jul 8 Exhibition open Tue thru Sat, 12 – 6pm The James Black Gallery – 144 E 6th Ave . Opening Reception: Mon Jun 19, 7pm Long regarded as the bedrock of the Queer Arts Festival, the Pride in Art Community Show honours the legacy…

Kiss & Tell Collective: Lesbian Imagery & Sexual Identities

Thu Jun 22 | 5:30pm Or Gallery – 236 E. Pender St. In this community presentation and Q&A, Dr. Kristen Hutchinson discusses the history and impact of the pioneering Vancouver-based Lesbian artist collective Kiss & Tell. Presented in partnership with Or Gallery. Where do you draw the line between censorship…

New Yams Festival

 Odera Igbokwe solo exhibit Thu Jun 22 – Fri Jul 2 8 Exhibition is open Tue-Sat, 12 to 6pm SUM gallery – #425-268 Keefer St. New Yams Festival Opening reception with Odera Igbokwe Thu Jun 22, 7pm SUM gallery – #425-268 Keefer St. Buy Tickets on Eventbrite Register for opening…

Sujit Vaidya: Breathe In The Fragrance

Fri Jun 23 | 7pm Roundhouse Performance Centre – 181 Roundhouse Mews Breathe In The Fragrance is Sujit Vaidya ‘s celebration of erotic ritual — of taste, of smell, of song, of dance, of sensations awakened by Jasmine — to make space for the in-betweenness of things to exist. Combining…

Witch Prophet

Sun Jun 25 | 5:30pm šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énḵ Square – Vancouver Art Gallery North Plaza – 750 Hornby St. Queer Arts Festival partners with Vancouver International Jazz Festival for the second year in a row to present Witch Prophet : the evolution of Toronto based singer-songwriter Ayo Leilani . Think Erykah…

Hymnen an die Nacht:

Claude Vivier Retrospective Tue Jun 27 | 7pm Roundhouse Performance Centre – 181 Roundhouse Mews In 1983, Canada’s queerest and most cosmic composer, Claude Vivier, shockingly left this world at the age of 34, murdered by a rent boy in Paris. In this retrospective, we commemorate the 40th anniversary of…

Glitter is Forever

Wed Jun 28 | 7pm   Roundhouse Exhibition Hall — 181 Roundhouse Mews Our 16th Queer Arts Festival comes home to dock in spectacular fashion, featuring drag performances by the “only nationally acclaimed All-Asian drag family,” House of Rice and music by DJ Bella Sie! Take in our curated visual art…

Glitter is Forever

Fri Jul 8 | 7pm  

Sun Wah Centre, 2nd Floor — 268 Keefer St.

Join us for the festival closing party at the Sun Wah Centre: three glorious floors of art, plus music and performances by the Queens, Kings, and Things of the House of Rice, including the fabulous Shay Dior and Haina from China!

Shay Dior. Credit: John Bello
Haina from China. Credit: Haina Wan

Queerotica

A night of literary readings

Wed Jul 6 | 7pm 

Sun Wah Centre, 2nd Floor – 268 Keefer St.


Berend McKenzie, Curator


This year our artists will present works that inspire, provoke, and titilate while exploring the theme, the Masc & Femme We Wear: what are the costs of masking or revealing one’s inner self under the glaring stage lights of colonialist supremacy? How do the expectations of a salacious supremacist gaze fit, chafe, bind, haunt or even unravel the BIPOC queer body and spirit? How is the BIPOC queer body eroticized and fetishized?

Featured Artists:

Janice Esguerra

Kyle Shaughnessy

Elmer Flores

Laura Fukumoto

Aly Laube


Berend McKenzie (he/she/they interchangeably) is an award-winning playwright, actor, producer, screenwriter, and published author living on Treaty 6 land otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta. Berend is best known for his ground-breaking, Jessie Richardson Award nominated one-person show NGGRFG. He has worked with Oscar-winning actresses Halle Berry and Angelina Jolie. Berend is currently writing his first auto-fiction novel, Adopted. In October 2021, Berend’s short story Hockey Night in Canada was published in the anthology Between Certain Death and A Possible Future: Queer Writing in Growing up with the AIDS Crisis (Arsenal Pulp Press) and has just completed writing their first TV pilot under option with Warner Media.

Bijuriya: Gabriel Dharmoo

Tue Jun 28 | 7pm

Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre Performance Centre – 181 Roundhouse Mews

Gabriel Dharmoo is a music composer and experimental vocalist. Bijuriya is a drag artist engaging with South Asian culture. Gabriel values innovation and risk taking as he navigates Eurocentric artistic scenes. On social media, Bijuriya lip-syncs her way into the hearts of brown queers. Both of them have marginal practices but they have very different audiences. But Gabriel and Bijuriya are one person – and it’s time to bring them together on one stage. Code-switching between drag performance, original songs, experimental sound design and the porosity between singing and lip-syncing, this piece celebrates the artist’s brownness through an array of unexpected talents. A quirky yet vulnerable exploration of their inadequacy to fully represent the subcultures they seek to embrace. 

Read the press release for Bijuriya: Gabriel Dharmoo.

Concept and performance: Gabriel Dharmoo (Bijuriya)

Technical Direction and Light Design: Jon Cleveland

Assistant to Light Design and to Tech Direction: Michael Tonus

Sound Design: Gabriel Dharmoo

Original songs: Bijuriya and Gabriel Ledoux

Voice, cello, steel pan and harmonium: Bijuriya

Electric guitar: Gabriel Ledoux

Additional vocals: Vidita Kanniks

Costumes: Bijuriya, Julie Pichette, Angela Rassenti

Wigs: Heaven Genderfck, Keith Fernandez

Sets accessories: Bijuriya 

Reel Eerie

Sun Jun 26 | 7pm

Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre Performance Centre – 181 Roundhouse Mews


CS Fergusson-Vaux & Ben Siegl, Curators


Did you hear that sound? What could it be? A monster, a masked assailant, a man-eating shark, a spectral haunting tethered to our plane, neither alive nor dead until suddenly…! The jump scare—a mirror, a blade, a bloodied hand on your shoulder… 

The horror film is a ripe framework for queer storytelling; a tense and violent confrontation with the unknown leaves you questioning your safety while inextricably inviting an experience that is both courageous and pleasurable. A haven of expressive catharsis, queer horror offers illusionary renderings of modern fears that give room to pick apart our monsters. The malevolence witnessed in the theatre is complex and personal, reminders of a history tucked under beds and hidden inside of closets—a lot of these monsters are our former roommates. Afterall, “…if something is both queer and gothic, look under the surface to disinter the insidious trauma buried there.” (Lauren Westengard)

“Reel Eerie” showcases filmmakers who have bravely picked-up a shovel and started to dig. Sifting through everything the genre has to offer—from the delightfully campy to the existentially terrifying—the films illustrate that our “real” journey from danger is always made in the hopes of heading towards liberation. Not all of us arrive, but we all do try. 

This event is ASL interpreted.

Featuring Films by:

Adam Tyree

Jonathan Wysocki

Joshua Lam

Kaye Adelaide

Mary Galloway

Monika Estrella Negra

TJ Cuthand

Tyler Barnes


Assistant Curator Benjamin Siegl is an artist, administrator and occasional curator hailing from the great state of Florida. Born in Philadelphia, he holds a BFA from Florida State University (2011) and a MFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2017) and currently resides on the unceded Coast Salish territories of Vancouver, BC. His interests include experimental animation and painting, and he is currently collaborating on a project with a PhD of molecular biology exploring the intersections of art and science.

Associate Artistic Director CS Fergusson-Vaux is a Black Carib Immigrant Artivist, and Historian with a fervent belief in decolonizing our community, encouraging and aiding in bold cultural endeavours, and constructing an ethical and inclusive artistic legacy. She uses Performative History, Transnational Studies, and JEDI based engagement to facilitate just artistic exchange between newly arrived diasporic and local queer commuities. She is currently pursuing studies in Social and Environmental Arts Practice.

Adria Kain + Janette King

Fri Jun 24 | 7:30pm

Performance Works, Granville Island – 1218 Cartwright St.

Queer Arts Festival proudly partners with Coastal Jazz and Blues Society to bring you a night of stunning R&B vocal artistry: Adria Kain and Janette King. This special event is part of the TD Vancouver International Jazz Festival, taking place at Performance Works on Granville Island.

**Please note that tickets to this event are not included in QAF’s festival pass, and tickets must be purchased through Coastal Jazz.


Adria Kain

Sharing stories of ardour, resilience, and self-actualization, Adria Kain’s voice, at once powerful and restrained, is a balm for times of tumult and noise. Chronicling a range of experiences, from the palliative effects of the natural world to embracing her identity as a queer Black woman, Adria’s new album When Flowers Bloom reminds us what it’s like to fall in love for the first time—or to discover an artist whose music can pierce your soul.


Janette King

Through the prism of alternative R&B, house, and pop, Caribbean-Canadian vocalist/producer/multi-instrumentalist Janette King’s What We Lost unpacks the complexities of grief with a wisdom you wouldn’t wish on someone so young. It’s a statement that — like contemporaries Victoria Monét and Snoh Aalegra — fuses deeply personal assessments of life with glass-half-full soundscapes that “ought to place her right near the top of the list of this country’s up-and-coming R&B artists” – Exclaim!

Presented in association with Coastal Jazz and Blues Society

Catalina La O Presenta:

Now With Me

Thu Jun 23 | 7pm
Sat Jun 25 | 2pm 

Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre Performance Centre – 181 Roundhouse Mews

A comedy show. A protest. A cabaret. Winner of the 2020 Vancouver Fringe New Play Prize, Catalina La O explores the life of khattieQ and Puerto Rican singing legends Myrta Silva and Ruth Fernández. The ravages of a storm have forced Catalina La O to take shelter in an abandoned television studio. None of her live audience has arrived, but she broadcasts her one-woman show anyway to the millions of viewers she hopes are watching. Created by the duo jk jk (khattieQ, musician/performer; Jenny Larson-Quiñones, director/writer), Catalina La O is a piece for queer communities, a piece for colonized bodies, a piece for Puerto Rico, and a piece for anyone who has experienced heartbreak.

Catalina La O gives voice to […] untold Latinx women’s stories, and to their struggle and resilience.” – Stir Vancouver

This event is ASL interpreted.

Read the press release for Catalina La O Presenta: Now With Me  – English version / Versión en Español


Una payasa. Una protesta. Un cabaret. Ganadora del Premio de Mejor Obra Nueva en el Festival Fringe de Vancouver 2020, Catalina La O explora la vida de khattieQ y de las cantantes legendarias de Puerto Rico, Myrta Silva y Ruth Fernandez. Los estragos de una tormenta han forzado a Catalina a refugiarse en un estudio de television abandonado. La audiencia en vivo no ha llegado así que Catalina decide transmitir el show a los millones de espectadores que, ella espera, estén viendo el show por televisión.

Creada por el duo jkjk (Jenny Larson-Quiñones directora/escritora y khattieQ músicx/ejecutante), Catalina La O es una obra para las comunidades queer. Esta pieza es para los cuerpos colonizados, para Puerto Rico, para todas las personas que conocen la angustia.

Este evento va a ser interpretado en ASL.

Productor: From The Corner Productions

Co-presentador: Rumble Theatre

Una produccion asociada de frank theatre company y Neworld Theatre

jk jk

jk jk es Arte de la Performance creada por khattieQ(músicx/ejecutante) y Jenny Larson-Quiñones(directora/guionista). La pareja crea arte de performance queer ideado en colaboración, para magnificar las historias de los marginados y perturbar el status quo.

Catalina La O presenta Ahora Conmigo fue desarrollada con la ayuda de Playwrights Theatre Centre y la dramaturgia de Joanna Garfinkel y el apoyo creativo de Adrienne Dawes.

Presenting Partner:

Presenting Partner:

Performer: khattieQ

Playwright and Director: Jenny Larson-Quiñones

Producer: Shanae Sodhi

Associate Producer: Anahita Monfared

Composer: Anton Berrios

Sound Design: Erika Champion

Lighting Designer: Abby Levis 

Set Designer: Kimira Reddy

Costume Design: Michelle Thorne 

Stage Manager: Katie Voravong 

Assistant Stage Manager: Rachel Brew 

Production Manager: Jasmin Sandhu

Technical Manager: Victoria Bell

Catalina La O presenta: Now With Me was developed with Playwrights Theatre Centre and has received dramaturgy from Joanna Garfinkel, and creative support from Adrienne Dawes and Neworld Theatre. Produced with support from Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and Canadian Heritage


jk jk

jk jk is performance art created by khattieQ (musician/performer) and Jenny Larson-Quiñones (director/writer). The couple creates collaboratively-devised queer performance art to magnify stories of the disenfranchised and disrupt the status quo.

HAUNTINGS: Pride in Art Community Show

Jun 20 – Jul 8

Exhibition open Wed thru Sat, 12 – 6pm

The James Black Gallery – 144 E 6th Ave.

Opening Reception: Mon Jun 20, 7pm

Long regarded as the bedrock of our Festival, the Pride in Art Community Show honours the legacy of founder, activist, and Two-Spirit artist Robbie Hong. This year we’ve teamed up with our queer partner-in-crime, The James Black Gallery, to showcase the audacious artwork of our local 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. Come see what haunts the artists in our midst …


Featured Artists:

Avery Chace

B. Malinsky

Braden Scheck

Darius Kian

Dezi Raider

Holly Steele

Israel Aguayo

Juno

Kali Fish

Katharine Hoehn

Katy Slany

Kwiigay + Paperwave

Lisa G

Nicholas Frenette

Nicole Melnicky

Rachel Warwick

Sazliyc

Steven Broome

VANISHING ACT:

Curated Visual Art Exhibition

Jun 18 – Jul 8 

Wed thru Sat, 12 – 6pm

Sun Wah Centre 3rd Floor, 4th Floor – 268 Keefer St.


Adwait Singh, Curator
SD Holman, Visual Art Exhibition Creative Director


Vanishing Act at Centre A:
Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art

Sat Jul 2

Sun Wah Centre 2nd Floor – Unit 205, 268 Keefer St.

Visual Art Tour | 3pm
Reception | 5pm

Sun Wah Centre | | Free


Featuring nearly 20 artists from around the world, Vanishing Act is a survey of queer artistic practices from the Global South – South Asia, Africa, the Middle East and their diasporas. Adwait 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.” Singh and Holman ask us to face our own Frankensteins, in a manner that queers have long been wont, haunted as we are by spectral toxicities.

Our Vanishing Act Curated Visual Art Exhibition becomes fully realized, fully materialized on July 2, when Centre A opens its doors as our festival partner and we unveil the extension to this exhibition. We’re celebrating our complete complement of curated artists with a building-wide tour led by Curator, Adwait Singh, Visual Art Exhibition Creative Director, SD Holman, and visiting guest artists. We then return to Centre A for a 5pm reception – come raise a glass to our most ambitious Curated Visual Art Exhibition ever!

Read the press release for curated visual art show, Vanishing Act.


Adwait Singh is an independent curator and theorist based out of New Delhi. Their works frequently weave in and out of areas of inquiry such as subjectivity formation, gender and sexuality, posthumanism, contemporary technogenesis and ecofeminism. Shortly after completing their Master’s at Goldsmiths, they seized the opportunity to be a part of the Students’ Biennale 2016 and have since facilitated different art projects and workshops for/with young artistic practitioners across the country for various non-profit organisations. Recent curations include ‘Mutarerium’ at the Mumbai Art Room that questions the terminology of the Anthropocene based on three more-than-human evolutionary timelines (Mumbai, 2019) and ‘Caressing History’ — a group show investigating the possibility of a body-based historiography for Prameya Art Foundation (New Delhi, 2018). They have been appointed as the curator of the 5th edition of the Mardin Biennial (2020).

 As an art writer Adwait has been devoting his energies documenting and theorising independent exhibitions and alternative art practices.


SD Holman (born 1963, Hollywood, California) is an award-winning artist and curator whose work has toured internationally. An ECUAD graduate in 1990, Holman was picked up by the Vancouver Association for Non-commercial Culture (the NON) right out of art school. Holman was appointed Artistic Director of Pride in Art in 2008 and spearheaded the founding of the Queer Arts Festival, now recognized among the top 2 of its kind worldwide, and SUM, Canada’s only queer-mandated transdisciplinary gallery. Holman has programmed artists notably including Kent Monkman, Cris Derksen, Jeremy Dutcher, Paul Wong, Angela Grossmann and Dana Claxton. A few Curatorial highlights include TRIGGER, the 25th anniversary exhibition for Kiss & Tell notorious Drawing the Line project, Adrian Stimson’s solo show Naked Napi, and Paul Wong’s monumental multi-curator Through the Trapdoor underground storage locker exhibition. Some of SD Holman’s other experience running art spaces included founding and running Studio Q the notorious Art Salon in Vancouver’s DTES Chinatown as noted in Secrets of the City 1st edition.

A laureate of the YWCA Women of Distinction Award, one of Canada’s most prestigious awards, Holman is known for engagement with themes of sex, death and identity. Holman’s work has exhibited at Wellesley College, the Advocate Gallery (Los Angeles), the Soady-Campbell Gallery (New York), the San Francisco Public Library, On Main Gallery, The Helen Pitt International Gallery, Charles H. Scott, Exposure, Gallery Gachet, the Roundhouse, Vancouver East Cultural Centre, Artropolis, and Fotobase Galleries (Vancouver). Holman’s portrait project BUTCH: Not like the other girls toured North America and is in its second print edition, published by Caitlin Press, Dagger Editions.

Featured Artists:

Andrew McPhail

Aryakrishnan Ramakrishnan

Areez Katki

Bassem Saad

Charan Singh

Elektra KB

Fazal Rizvi

Hank Yan Agassi

Hiba Ali

Imaad Majeed

Omer Wasim

Renate Lorenz & Pauline Boudry

Renuka Rajiv

Shahana Rajani

Sharlene Bamboat

Sunil Gupta

Syma Tariq

Syrus Marcus Ware

Vishal Jugedo

A partnership with Centre A, On Main Gallery, and Griffin Art Projects.

ArtParty!  

Sat Jun 18 | 7pm

Sun Wah Centre Rooftop – 268 Keefer St.

We’re back! What better way to kick off QAF 2022 than from the rooftop of our Chinatown digs? Stunning views, phenomenal performances, delicious food and drink, and the launch of Vanishing Act, our curated visual art exhibition curated by Adwait Singh and directed by SD Holman. Check out the exhibition on the 3rd and 4th floors of the Sun Wah Centre, then head up to the rooftop for beats provided by DJ KOTA and special performances curated by Full Circle: First Nations Performance! It’s art. It’s conviviality. And it’s damned queer.

This event is ASL Interpreted.

DJ KOTA is a trans/2s Kanyen’kehá:ka DJ and event coordinator currently living in so-called Vancouver. They’ve been co-producing events and DJing since 2018, with a focus on creating safer night life spaces for QTBIPOC event goers. Driven by their passion for music and community, they hope to contribute to the production of nightlife events that centres and gives platform to Indigiqueer brilliance and joy.

DONATE

QAF 2023: Queers in Space Fundraiser

Donate by June 17th  for a chance to win festival passes and more!

Get entered to win one of three very queer prize packs (including festival passes, limited-edition prints, and more)  when you donate to the Queer Arts Festival 2023 Fundraiser! Every $10 you donate gets your an entry into the prize raffle — enter as many times as you like to increase your chances!  Donations made either using the form on this page or through our Eventbrite ticketing system using the “Donate to enter QAF 2023 prize raffle!” option at checkout will all be entered to win. Winners will be announced via email and in-person at our festival opening ArtParty! on June 17th. 

When you donate, you’re helping us create opportunities for queer artists, preserve and celebrate queer culture, and ensure that our community remains strong and proud, no matter what the world throws at us. In a world that is becoming increasingly hostile to Queer joy – we are committed to creating beautiful, inspiring community spaces where our queerness can shine. Your donation will ensure we can continue to be one of the world’s leading platforms for Queer art and artists. Help us keep the future Queer!

Can’t attend the 2023 Queer Arts Festival but still want to show your support? Please consider donating here: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/pride-in-art-society/

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

Piano Burning

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,...

ArtParty!

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...

Curated Visual Art Exhibition

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...

Language as a Virus: Queer isolation stories

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...

Language as a Virus: The Tour

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...

Curator Tour with Guest Artists

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!'); };...

Screen Greenery

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!'); };...

Queerotica

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',...

Onibana Taiko and Alvin Erasga Tolentino

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....

Glitter is Forever

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...

Kindred Spirits

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...

Pride in Art Community Show

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...

Pillows for the Pandemic

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() {...

Queerer than Queer: Lessons from Nonduality for Deep Planetary Healing

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...

Gathering of Wishes and 1000 Paper Butterflies

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...

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Piano Burning

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, Annea Lockwood’s infamous work — where QAF veteran Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa performs a piano as it burns to ashes — is re-envisioned through the lens of historically banned First Nations fire ceremonies and contemporary global warming of unprecedented levels.

Margo Kane and Full Circle: First Nations Performance ground this event with cultural knowledge and a focus on Two-Spirit artists: Sempúlyan, who will speak about the spiritual role of fire to communicate with ancestors; Russell Wallace, who has composed a new piece for the occasion; designer Evan Ducharme, who created Iwaasa’s fire-proof ball gown; and Squamish Nation councillor Orene Askew (aka DJ O Show), who will set the piano alight.

Bring a chair, bring a blanket, and dress for the weather!

Watch artists Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa & Evan Ducharme talk about their collaboration in Piano Burning, from our QAF 2021 interview series Studio (ob)Sessions:

Workshop: Gathering of Wishes and 1000 Paper Butterflies

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