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.
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 Exhibition, bumfuzzled monachopsis: innerspace out, curated by Zandi Dandizette, while enjoying delicious food and drink, gyrating to the spins of the incredible DJ Nea Stone Fox, and celebrating with the Queerdos of our community!
It’s Art. It’s a Party. It’s the best combination of both.
This event is ASL Interpreted.
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
Featured Artists:
Eda Birthing
Helena St Tearer
JAIK PUPPYTEETH
Judah Kong
Kale Roberts
Kali Fish
Leby Le Morìa
Levi Nelson
Makoto Chi
Odera Igbokwe
Moozhan Ahmadzadegan
Parisa Rafat
Pastiche Lumumba
Rachel Britton
Raven John
Romi Kim, Kendell Yan & Chris Reed
bumfuzzled monachopsis: innerspace out reflects the uncertain times in which our collective world does not ascertain belonging to those occupying it. Our parallel universes of experience, never quite overlapping, seeking out an idealized community, that “me-shaped” hole in which inclusion is touted. A confused subtle space of emotion as the external world points at what we are and who we are, yet never quite where we are welcome to be.
The present state in which queer artists take up space, share space, and embody the ownership of it. Sharing our inner worlds out visually via developed characters, worlds, or visual language that provides safety in exploring identity or the relation to the spaces around them.
Zandi Dandizette’s curation asks viewers to “wander the maze of our hearts and open them to the multiplicity of being.” We are not a homogenized whole, but many individuals all seeking that future space in which belonging can be achieved.
Zandi Dandizette, QAF 2023 Visual Art Exhibition guest curator
Zandi Dandizette is a nonbinary settler-immigrant interdisciplinary arts and cultural worker that likens their medium as space whether 2D, 3D, or 4D. Their work vacillates between focus shifts on identity, dis/connection, and collective problem solving. Zandi’s practice attempts to investigate and share the lessons they’ve absorbed in navigating the complexity of existence by utilizing repeating shape and colour motifs. Zandi has a BMA in Animation (2014) from Emily Carr University and has shown varied new media and installation works over the last decade across Canada and internationally. They balance their artistic practice with supporting arts advocacy and community building. Zandi Dandizette co-founded and leads The James Black Gallery (2014) which is located on the stolen unceded ancestral lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. They are a current board member of CARFAC National, and chartering member of the Arts and Cultural Workers Union (ACWU local 778-B).
Preston Buffalo AR works
Sat Jun 17 – Wed Jun 28
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 from the Pleiades star cluster. Buffalo’s AR images are invisible and inaudible to the naked eye and ear – but revealed when your phone scans a QR code! Presented in partnership with Little Chamber Music.
Preston Buffalo
Preston Buffalo (he/him) is a Two-Spirited Cree man residing in the unceded Coast Salish Territories in British Columbia. His interdisciplinary practice is centred around exploring personal Indigenous iconography and symbolism through the use of photography, alternative photo processes, digital illustration and AR. Preston’s work is informed by pressing issues faced by Indigenous communities, including mental health, harm reduction, loss of culture and language resulting from displacement and the residential school system. By intersecting traditional material practice with contemporary techniques, his work seeks to challenge viewers’ perceptions of contemporary Indigenous Identity.