Relational rEvolutions

Mon Jun 17 – Wed Jun 26 | Visual Art Exhibition | 

Guest curator Elwood Jimmy

We often think of revolution in relation to ways of knowing, but we rarely think about revolution in relation to our colonial habits of being – how our habits are dependent on, maintained and enabled by colonization. A revolution of being is not about what we say, how we look, how we perform, or how we trade in the different economies of colonial modernity. A revolution of being invites us to change our desires, our hopes, how we hope, how we sense, how we love, and above all, regenerate and recalibrate our relationships with each other, with the land, with time, with form and with space. In this recalibration of being, time and revolution are not linear. A radically different and tender way of being is necessary to face the violence on particular bodies – the human and non-human – that keep colonial systems in place, and to not lose sight of what we do not want to see. It is the cultivation and maintenance of practices – artistic, spiritual, life – that gesture towards a reimagining of a different way of being, of sitting with the complexities that we collectively face in an increasingly polarized world. In this exhibition, we look towards practices and processes that move towards generative ways of being. – Curator Elwood Jimmy

Poly Queer Love Ballad

March 5 – 9 | 8 pm
March 9 & 10
| 2 pm

Co-produced by Queer Arts Festival 
Presented with the Frank Theatre and Zee Zee Theatre

A New Slam Poetry Musical By Anais West and Sara Vickruck 
Directed by Julie McIsaac 

After playing sold-out shows at the Vancouver Fringe Festival and winning multiple awards, Poly Queer Love Ballad returns to Vancouver.

Art Party!

Tue Jun 18 | 7pm | Free
Gala Opening Reception

Join us for the Queer Arts Festival’s opening Art Party!, where art and conviviality converge at the grand opening.

Art Party! marks the opening night of QAF’s curated exhibition, Relational rEvolutions, curated by Elwood Jimmy; the Pride in Art Community Exhibition; and is the kick off for the incredible exhibitions, performances, and Satellite Academy outreach initiatives that make up the Queer Arts Festival.

Our opening night galas are one of Vancouver’s best attended visual arts events, making this a party you don’t want to miss!

PIA Community Arts Show Submissions

The Pride in Art Community Show takes place in the Roundhouse Great Hall. Art for this show doesn’t need to fit the festival theme.

Where: The Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre (at Davie/Pacific), Vancouver, BC

When: June 17 – June 28, 2019.

Submission deadline: April 15 or until space is filled.


Roundhouse Great Hall specs:

  • 25 hanging places: work must be no wider than 30″, and be able to hang from silver hooks at 7′ high
  • All works must be professionally presented; wall-mounted pieces must be ready to hang
  • Plinths: 24″ sq 4 ft high, or 16″ sq 3 feet high
  • 2 glass shelving unit glass display cases, 16″ square

Submission Checklist:

  1. Complete the Online Submission Form below. Submissions are accepted via online registration only. Please fill out the information in the appropriate fields.
  2. Email the following files with the subject line “Community Show Submission” to submission@queerartsfestival.com
    • digital images of artwork(s) being submitted for consideration. Format: JPG (no larger than 200 kb per image). All image files must be clearly titled with artist name_work title_year of creation, or the submission will not be accepted.
    • a 75-word Artist Bio
    • an Artist Statement pertaining to the work submitted
  3. Pay the submission fee (see below for payment options)

Curated Visual Art Submissions

Artists are invited by the curator(s) to make or submit work

For the QAF Curated exhibition, a curator chooses the artists and works of art, or art projects, grouped around an idea or theme. If you would like us to keep your work in mind for the Curator simply send an email with the subject line “Curated Visual Art ” to submission@queerartsfestival.com including:

  • your full contact details (including where you reside)
  • your artist bio
  • a link to your website
  • critical reviews of your work
  • how your work will speak to the next year’s theme (if applicable)

We do our best to review all inquiries in a timely manner but can only guarantee a follow up if your work is selected for our exhibition. We thank you in advance for your patience and interest.

”nfortunately, we cannot respond to every email so please do not be surprised if we are not able to get back to you. We are always pleased to know of interesting work and will keep your work on file for future consideration.

Deadline: none

Also consider participating in the Pride in Art Community Show, accepting un-themed open submissions.


Performance Submissions

Proposals from all performing arts disciplines (dance, music, theatre, circus arts, and any hybrid, interdisciplinary forms) are accepted on a year-round basis, but the best time to submit is in March for the festival of the following year (ie. submit in March 2023 for the June 2024 festival).

Due to the large number of submissions, only proposals under serious consideration will receive a reply.

Please email at submission@queerartsfestival.com with your submission:

  1. One page performance proposal describing the piece, including title, duration, artistic discipline(s), and technical requirements.
  2. Short bios of 250-500 words of all participating artists, including website URLs.
  3. Headshots or other promo images .jpg no larger than 200 kb. File names must indicate title and name of artist.
  4. Phone number and email for contact person.
  5. Audio or video sample of work. Accepted formats DVD, CD, mp3 and youtube or vimeo links. Please check your media: if we cannot open your files, the submission will not be considered.

Ten year anniversary QAF

June 16-28 2018

DECADEnce, curated visual arts exhibition,
on view at the Roundhouse (Mon-Sun 9am-10pm) until June 27.

What is a mark? In a settler colonial society we have a very solidified perception of what “counts” as worthy of articulating. Programmed in an imperial tradition, we literally count success and attach dates to significant momentous occasions, times in history when someone is said to have “accomplished something” that should be celebrated and then written down to measure its worth, annually. HIStory has tried to erase the Other in its wake of calculating difference, asserting authority, superiority, a bar to be set by systems of power to ensure the success of a single story.

Submit to SUM Gallery

SUM Gallery Exhibition or Performance

If you would like to show us your work for consideration, simply send an email with the subject line “SUM gallery Submission” to submission@queerartsfestival.com including:
For Visual Arts submissions:
  • full contact details (including where you reside)
  • short bios of 250-500 words of all participating artists, including website URLs
  • digital images of artwork(s) being submitted for consideration. Format: JPG (no larger than 200 kb per image). All image files must be clearly titled with artist name_work title_year of creation, or the submission will not be accepted.
  • critical reviews of your work
  • artist statement pertaining to the work submitted and how it fits with SUM’s mandate
For Performances submissions:
  • full contact details (including where you reside)
  • short bios of 250-500 words of all participating artists, including website URLs
  • one page performance proposal describing the piece, including title, duration, artistic discipline(s), and technical requirements
  • promo images .jpg no larger than 200 kb – All image files titled with artist name_work title_year of creation.
  • audio or video sample of work – accepted formats DVD, CD, mp3 and youtube or vimeo links. Please check your media – if we cannot open your files, the submission will not be considered
  • critical reviews of your work
Unfortunately we cannot respond to every email, so please don’t be surprised if we aren’t able get back to you, we are always pleased to know of interesting work and will keep your work on file for future consideration. Shows are booked two years in advance, please be patient.

SUM GALLERY MEASUREMENTS

678 square feet
93 linear feet

Ceiling height:

  • to the light rails: 9’
  • to highest point: 11’

North wall: 22’
West wall: 15’
South wall: 22’
East wall: 24’

The gallery space has no windows.

SUM GALLERY FACT SHEET

Capacity:
  • standing: max. 100
  • seating: max. 70
Equipment:
  • gallery lights and rails
  • 1920 x 1080 monitor
  • projector with 4K Enhancement
  • sound system with speakers, subwoofer, wireless and wired mics
  • grand piano Petrof 6.3′


Also consider participating in QAF Pride in Art Community Show, accepting un-themed open submissions annually.

2018 : DECADEnce

Visual art Curator: Valerie d. Walker

June 16 – June 29, 2018

Decadence is often used in a negative context to denote some kind of moral or social decline with lavish or overindulgence in things that bring us pleasure. Queer that up and see the opportunity for: Luxurious self-indulgence full of richness and the celebration of pleasures. That’s the idea.


2018 Events


Video

https://vimeo.com/337395476/122117da5f

Image Gallery


2017 : UnSettled

Visual Art Curator: Adrian Stimson

June 17 – 29, 2017

UnSettled is curated by Two-Spirit and queer-identified Indigenous artists, and developed in collaboration with Indigenous arts organizations. The term “Two-Spirit” is used by many Indigenous people to describe their gender, sexual and spiritual identity—often inclusive of all Indigenous LGBTQ+—in reclaiming and restoring traditional concepts suppressed by colonial heteronormativity.


2017 Events


Video

https://vimeo.com/243723812


Image Gallery


2016 : Stonewall was a Riot

Visual art Curator: Jonathan D. Katz

June 21 – 30, 2016

Drama Queer is about queer politics, but not in the usual sense. It doesn’t ask you to assume a position and endorse a belief, for that would only meet you in known, familiar territory.


2016 Events


Video


Image Gallery


2015 : Trigger – Drawing the Line in 2015

Curated by: SD Holman

July 23 – August 7, 2015

QAF celebrates the 25th anniversary of a landmark work of queer heritage with this year’s theme Trigger: Drawing the Line in 2015.

We draw our lines today very differently than in 1990. As “trigger warnings” placed before art to alert viewers about potentially traumatizing material become increasingly common, QAF 2015 questions what we are sacrificing for safety’s sake. As Jeannette Winterson wrote: “Art has deep and difficult eyes and for many the gaze is too insistent… We avoid painful encounters with art by trivializing it, or by familiarizing it… Every day, in countless ways, you and I convince ourselves about ourselves. True art, when it happens to us, challenges the “I” that we are… Art objects. The nouns become an active force not a collector’s item. Art objects.”


2015 Events


Videos


Image Gallery


2014 : ReGenerations

Visual Art Curator: Laiwan

July 23 – August 9, 2014

QAF’s 2014 theme, Regenerations, is a defiant reframing of the Nazi term “Degenerate Art”, the moniker under which they banned work by the avant-garde, Jews, Communists and queers.

Tyrants throughout history have censored artists on the grounds that their work posed an imminent danger to society. QAF embraces the premise of art as dangerous, even revolutionary. For it is in the intimate act of sharing as artists and audiences we find meaning and transformation. And from that place of vulnerable connection, we find the strength and inspiration to change the world.


2014 Events


Video


Image Gallery


2013 : TransgressionNow

Visual Art Curators: Glenn Alteen and Paul Wong

July 24 – August 9, 2013

Since the days of the Stonewall Riots in 1969, queers have prided themselves on the notion of being at odds with straight culture. Indeed the whole Gay Pride movement is predicated on the right to be different than society at large.

TransgressionNow looks at where Queer artists still transgress social, gender, and political boundaries and what that looks like now.


Video


Image Gallery


2012 : Random Acts of Queerness

Visual Art Curators: Persimmon Blackbridge, Jeffery Austin Gibson & SD Holman

July 31 – August 18, 2012

The 2012 Queer Arts Festival brings you “Random Acts of Queerness”, to commemorate the centenary of the experimental multidisciplinary queer artist John Cage. A pioneer of experimental music, Cage is best known for championing Indeterminacy: a philosophy that opens up artistic practice to include the random as a way of radically breaking with tradition, convention and habit.


VIDEO


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