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/

https://queerartsfestival.com/pride-in-art-community-visual-arts-show/

Gender Pirates

Centipede—Flavourcel Animation Collective

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

Catalogue Carousel

THE MASC AND FEMME WE WEAR—A NIGHT OF READINGS FROM QTBIPOC WRITERS

Let us love: The ‘Sun Comes Out’ at Portland Opera

Queer-themed Canadian opera makes U.S. premiere at Hampton Opera Center

FEBRUARY 2, 2022

BYANGELA ALLEN, OREGON ARTSWATCH

When the Sun Comes Out opened in 2013 in Canada, commissioned by the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival.

Now, a long eight years later, the new-music opera by Japanese-Canadian Leslie Uyeda with a gorgeous libretto by Canadian poet Rachel Rose, finally premieres in the United States. It opened Jan. 28 at Portland Opera’s Hampton Opera Center for six performances through Feb. 12. Five have sold out, though the day I went, the 154-seat space was at least a third empty. Many opera-goers may have decided to watch from home when the opera is available digitally on Portland Opera Onscreen for a limited time starting Feb. 25.

But the big question: Why do these eye-opening pieces take so long to reach us? In 2015, gay marriage was legalized in the United States. It was 2005 in Canada, and in 2002, the Netherlands pioneered it. Gay marriage is old news in the Western world, from a political standpoint, though the opera was written and sung in English. Of course there are more complex ramifications to gay marriage than legalization.

And in at least 65 other countries same-sex marriage remains a crime, many times a death sentence. And that’s what this opera is all about — and it’s about love being blind to politics: love is love, even more if you have to fight for it.

The Hampton’s intimate Hinckley Studio Theatre can be reconfigured for different shows, and this one, with the audience on three sides, left the stage to the performers. Only a pile of pale furniture morphed into a table here, a bed there. The five musicians and conductor were tucked away in a corner.

Christine A. Richardson’s simple white and beige costumes (other than the rugged mannish one worn by the intense, plucky Solana performed by soprano Cree Carrico) and Cynthia Felice’s set were neutral, indicating a lack of place other than the inside of a home, perhaps a reference to Covid’s claustrophobia. Still, there was a shawl that turned into a head scarf for Lilah (mezzo Sandra Piques Eddy), the woman who now has a child and is desperately sought out again by Solana after an affair three years earlier.

So perhaps that head scarf and mention of lemon trees in Lilah’s courtyard were clues to the setting, though the symbolism did not hit you over the head. In contrast, Solana was dressed like a Canadian explorer — hat, staff and shoulder bag. The suspenders on the two men’s costumes were a nice touch. The detail gave off a pioneer vibe, and in this opera, there are pioneers. This is a country-less, timeless piece.

As much as I adored the poetic libretto loaded with images and metaphor about two very different women— Solana comes off as daring, dangerous, brave and fickle; Lilah is a wealthy (her emerald jewels are mentioned), obedient wife and mother— who fall for each other in an unknown country where gay sex is criminalized, I was not overwhelmed by the opera. 

The music falls into the category of new music, with distinctively Asian touches, and tempos were notably uneven and melody uncommon. Many listeners’ ears are not tuned to those musical values, though others of us crave and embrace brave new operas. The five Portland Opera Orchestra principals who played (cellist Dylan Rieck, flutist GeorgeAnne Rieg, clarinetist Louis DeMartino, violinist Margaret Bichteler and pianist Sequoia) conducted by Maria Sensi Sellner were excellent despite the difficult score, and never overwhelmed the singers. At times, the subtle music vanished into a backdrop, and I wish I could recall more of it.

Two dancers–Sophie Beadie and Aaron Petite of Portland’s Shaun Keylock Company–reflected complex emotions, mostly comforting with their movements the performers’ angst, but sometimes enhancing their fury. Graceful and almost soundless, they were a welcome addition to the production, and very much a part of the show’s fabric, somehow sorting out searingly difficult feelings and memories.

Then about 50 minutes into the 80-minute opera, guess who appears? A man. This is no longer a lesbian opera if that’s what you were banking on.The story gets more interesting and the stakes go higher.

Baritone Michael Parham, plays the part of Lilah’s husband, Javan. And guess what? He has a vey big secret: He’s gay, too, and has named their beloved daughter after a favorite lover, Azhar, who was killed for homosexual behavior. (Javan has intense survivor’s guilt.)

Everyone is suddenly in the same boat, despite the jealousy and secrets, and they can kill each other off before the state does, or they can help one another to forge a new future. They choose the latter after much saber-rattling and knife-drawing, and an overwhelming reason is the child — the future, a factor that the stubborn Solana must accept. Lilah and Javan must accept a new family configuration with Solana. After all, the opera is called When the Sun Comes Out; its message is ultimately hopeful.

The opera picked up with the entrance of Parham, a former PO resident artist, who has a strong voice and weighty stage presence. He added his baritone to Carrico’s soprano and to Eddy’s lovely warm mezzo (she sings often at the Met and was praised profusely for her 2015 PO Carmen performance and for the Carmen she sang twice on tour with Seiji Ozawa).

Carrico’s voice calmed down as the performance lengthened. She is a coloratura soprano and has quite a bit of ping and ring to her voice. Some call it squillo, which according to my online source is:

the resonant, trumpet-like sound in the voices of opera singers. It is also commonly called ring, ping, core and other terms. Squillo enables an essentially lyric tone to be heard over thick orchestrations, e.g., in late Verdi, Puccini and Strauss operas.

Too much and the voice sounds shrill.

And there was no thick orchestration to be heard over. Perhaps Carrico was directed to sing more stridently in the first part of the opera to show off her bravado. “I will never be a wife or a bride in dazzling white,” she sings early on. The opera space is small and the audience is on top of the singers, so the pinging and ringing were especially apparent. Eventually–most notably with Parham’s entrance–the singers harmonized in duets and trios, and there was nothing more beautifully rendered and orchestrated in the opera, without the least bit of sentimentality, than the last line: “Let us love.”

Queering the Air—A Quintessentially Queer Concert Series presented by SUM gallery

Vancouver composer Leslie Uyeda’s When The Sun Comes Out sees its U.S. premiere at Portland Opera, January 28

Originally commissioned and produced by the Queer Arts Festival, opera explores forbidden love in a nation where homosexuality is banned.

BY JANET SMITH, STIR VANCOUVER

A PIONEERING OPERA about oppression and the LGBTQSIA+ community is set to see its American premiere.

Vancouver composer, pianist, and conductor Leslie Uyeda’s groundbreaking When the Sun Comes Out, with a libretto by Vancouver poet Rachel Rose, opens at the Portland Opera on January 28.

When The Sun Comes Out was composed between 2011 and 2012 as a commission for the Vancouver Queer Arts Festival, where it premiered in 2013, followed by performances in Toronto in 2014. It was billed at the time as “Canada’s first lesbian opera”.

The opera is a poetic love story following resistance against a fictional state that oppresses lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people. It centres on the rebellious Solana and her beloved Lilah, who is now a wife and mother; together, they fight for a new future, even as their secret romance is threatened by Lilah’s unpredictable husband, Javan.

The live Portland production, staged at the Hampton Opera Center, features a cast that includes Sandra Piques Eddy, Cree Carrico, and Michael Parham, under conductor Maria Sensi Sellner and director Alison Moritz. The music comes courtesy of a quintet of Portland Opera Orchestra musicians, featuring violin, cello, flute, clarinet, and piano. The piece also integrates original dance by Portland’s Shaun Keylock Company.

At the time of the premiere here, Uyeda, a onetime chorus director for Vancouver Opera, revealed she had long dreamed of writing a lesbian opera in a genre that often centres on heterosexual love stories. Both she and the poet she found to create the libretto are queer artists. (Rose was Vancouver’s Poet Laureate from 2014 to 2017.)

Reflecting on the ongoing relevance of the piece in the American-premiere announcement yesterday, Lesie Uyeda said, “Written before social movements that began in the United States such as #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, and before the tragedy in Orlando, I’ve asked myself how different the opera might be if it had been written within the last two or three years.

“What is the difference between what I wanted to say then and what I would say now? Sadly, I think that the issues the opera was talking about ten years ago are more than relevant today. For this reason, I am so grateful to Portland Opera for including When The Sun Comes Out in their 2021-2022 season.”

SOVEREIGNTY at SUM gallery — DUANE ISAAC

SUM gallery artist residency—DION SMITH-DOKKIE

Here’s why a piano was lit on fire in Mountain View Cemetery this weekend

By: Brendan Kergin, Vancouver is Awesome

An unusual sight lit the city’s only cemetery this past weekend.

On the evening of Sunday, Oct. 24, a piano was set on fire as a woman in a red (fire-proof) gown played two new songs.

This was a piece of transdisciplinary art, though a piece with plenty of ceremonial aspects, involving sound and visual pieces.

Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, the pianist, was performing a local version of Piano Burning put on by the Queer Arts Festival (QAF) and Full Circle: First Nations Performance. Originally conceived of in 1968 by avant-garde composer Annea Lockwood, the local version carried extra meaning given the current state of the world, location, and participants, says SD Holman, the founding artistic director emeritus at the QAF.

A central theme has to do with the involvement of Indigenous peoples in the performance. Among other parts, there was a four directions dance preceding the piano performance, and the original songs played as the piano was lit on fire were created by local composer and member of the Lil’wat Nation Russell Wallace.

Piano Burning, in this context, resembled a fire ceremony. Fire ceremonies were a part of Coast Salish culture banned by the federal government along with potlatches.

“The music, the dance and all the ritualistic aspects of things were basically performed not openly in the community,” Wallace says. “Back in the 40s when the songs were coming back out, my mom was part of that movement of bringing the music back to the community.”

Through the flames items are sent to ancestors and those who’ve passed. For Holman it was a way to send music to their wife. For Wallace the ceremonial impact of his work didn’t hit until the piano his songs were being played and the piano was burning.

“I wrote it with the intention of sending music up to my parents who were both very supportive of me being involved in music,” he tells Vancouver is Awesome. “I had a moment there I was like, ‘Wow, this is kind of heavy with meaning.'”

Part of that weighty moment comes from the fact it was held in a cemetery. Holman notes another layer of the piece has to do with the fact a piano is an item from European and colonial cultures, while it was burned in a fire ceremony with many Indigenous aspects involved.

“Europeans burn things in effigy, it’s a violent concept,” she notes. “Indigenous people burn not what’s despised, but what’s cherished.”

Another aspect is an environmental statement, since the wooden object burns; the fact the performance had to be delayed due to the fire ban over the summer only adds to that. Additionally, there are the recent headlines about residential schools in Canada, a part of history that’s only recently been seeing more light.

“We have to learn to reconcile the difference between what we’re taught and the history we can no longer deny with all the residential schools,” Holman says.

Central to all the layers is the transformative nature of fire.

“It’s this beautiful thing; how we’re directly witnessing matter change to energy, just as we transform from matter to energy when we die,” says Holman.

Wallace wrote two pieces of music just to be played as the piano was destroyed. In both cases he leaned on Coast Salish styles to inform the songs.

“Being a knitter, I’ve knitted before, and patterns, repeating patterns, slightly altering them to create designs are important,” he says. “That was the idea of the compositions. Repetition with slight changes to create a design.”

Since he’d never written for piano before Iwaasa, the pianist in the flame retardant gown (and co-founder of QAF), helped. She had actually approached Wallace in the first place about creating the music.

While the music was central to the performance, Wallace notes the visual of the piano was interesting.

“Once it got darker and the piano was ablaze it was really visually striking and kind of felt like a big bon fire,” he says.

For those upset at the idea of a piano being destroyed, Holman notes it was donated after a long life of being used and recycled throughout the community. She also notes it was “not really a viable piano” anymore. Wallace says that the first thing to go on it, after it was set alight was the tuning (it was a cool day and fire is hot).

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