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 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.
QAF 2021 Dispersed: it’s not easy being green runs 3 weeks from your computer, our home base, the Sun Wah Centre in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown, and Vancouver’s only cemetery, Mountain View Cemetery.
When green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why,
but why wonder?
– Kermit the Frog
Buy festival PASS here:
2021 EVENTS AT A GLANCE
ArtParty!
Sat Jul 24, 7-10pm
Festival Opening | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer
QAF’s Gala opening party: With music, dazzling views, and art on multiple levels of the Sun Wah Centre to explore, we’re launching the Dispersed QAF in champagne style (have a glass or two or a nibble or three on us) with DJ O Show!
it’s not easy being green: Curated Visual Art Exhibition and Tour
Sat Jul 24 – Fri Aug 13, from 12 – 6pm
Visual Art | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer Lower Ground
Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour and SD Holman curate artists who transmute our collective broken heart of forced dislocations with departures and arrivals, using art as transformative praxis and practice towards social and spiritual metamorphoses.
Tue Jul 27, 5pm
Visual Art Tour | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer
Come together for our Visual Art Tour with the curators Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour and SD Holman, guest artists, and a gallery of intimate friends old and new.
Language as a Virus: Queer Isolation Stories
Sat Jul 24 – Fri Aug 13
Sonic Installation | around False Creek & Online
An interactive audio/radio/networked soundwork from Bobbi Kozinuk that invites the user to explore themes around the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on queer and diverse communities. Featuring Jae Lew.
Language as a Virus: The Tour
Mon Jul 26, 5pm
Audio Art Tour | Creek Side CC (TBC) False Creek
Take a stroll or a bike ride along False Creek and tune in to WENR 88.9FM Isolation Radio with your host Bobbi Kozinuk and explore her multi-layered work, Language as a Virus: Queer Isolation Stories.
Studio (ob)Sessions
Mon July 26 – throughout festival
Digital Discourse | Online
In the connective void that has been this pandemic pause, QAF takes you on a few house calls. We visit with several festival artists in their creation spaces, a digital dialogue to allow a connection from the artist in their corner of space to you and where you call your place.
Screen Greenery
Sat Jul 31, 9pm
Media Art Screening | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer Rooftop
Curated by Fergie and Ben! Rooftop screening of very queer and rather green short films. BYOB (bring your own blanket).
Queerotica
Mon Aug 2, 8pm | Literary Readings | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer Rooftop & Online
Curated by Josie Boyce, slip into something a little more comfortable and enjoy readings by Vancouverite writers.
Attend in person or at home via streaming.
Ceremony for Rebel Spirits – Onibana Taiko and Alvin Erasga Tolentino
Sat Aug 7, 8pm
Dance and Musical 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.
Piano Burning
Sun Aug 8, 8pm
Performance Art | Mountain View Cemetery & Online
With Full Circle First Nations Performance, we build on Annea Lockwood’s conceptual classic music composition with a new commission by Lil’wat composer Russell Wallace, a fireproof ball gown created by Métis designer Evan Ducharme, and a piano on fire played by Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa.
Attend in person or at home via streaming.
Glitter is Forever
Fri Aug 13, 7-10pm
Closing | 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 2021 with us at the Sun Wah Centre, from the basement, to the SUM gallery, to the rooftop (take it all in!! the art, the views!!).
SATELLITE ACADEMY : Workshops, Community, Discourse +
Multidisciplinary outreach and community programming rooted in the premise that 2SLGBTQ+ lives are relevant and universal as artistic inspirations. Title inspired by writer Sarah Schulman’s Satellite Academy
Kindred Spirits
Sat Jul 24 – Fri Aug 13
Community Visual Art | 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 digital exhibition focuses on re-storying 2Spirit identities and futures through community connection and self-portraiture beyond colonial constructs.
Pride in Art Community Show
Sat Jul 24 – Fri Aug 13, from 12 – 6pm
Visual Art | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer
The community show honours Pride in Art founder, activist, and Two-Spirit artist Robbie Hong’s legacy with an open community exhibition. This year, we’re throwing what was once refused up on our walls. Join community artists in a Salon des Refusés (or perhaps Recyclés) celebrating works that were previously censored or rejected.
Pillows for the Pandemic
Wed Jul 28, 7:30pm
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 controllable comforts.
Gathering of Wishes and 1000 Paper Butterflies
Wed Aug 4, 6pm | Workshop | SUM gallery or Online
Naoko Fukumaru and Eva Wong in Phase 1 of Mass Reincarnation of Wish Fragments 願片大量転生 (Ganhen Tairyou Tensei), where participants create origami and utilize the ink bleeding process to create a butterfly with their own unique patterns and colours.
Queerer than Queer: Lessons from Nonduality for Deep Planetary Healing
Thu Aug 5 & Fri Aug 6, 7pm | Workshop | SUM gallery or Online
Is the universe queerer than we can suppose? From the foot of the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh, Tejal Shah will guide us through this two-part interactive workshop that explores the fine line between illusions and reality. We will explore the possible impact an embodied understanding of nonduality can have on our affective world and on our relationships with ‘others’.