by Craig Takeuchi, Georgia Straight, March 15th, 2016
Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival continues its dedication to LGBT art and social progress with the theme of the 2016 edition of the festival. That commitment is further underscored by the change of its dates this year from August to the Stonewall season in June.
This year’s QAF visual art exhibition will explore what role emotion plays in queer art as political activism.
Drama Queer: Seducing Social Change will be curated by New York–based queer studies scholar Jonathan D. Katz.
The exhibition will centre around three paintings by Vancouver artist Attila Richard Lukacs, and will include work by international artists, including Angela Grossman, Bill Jacobson, Vika Kirchenbauer, Alice O’Malley, Del LaGrace Volcano, and more.
Australian composer Lyle Chan’s An AIDS Activist’s Memoir will be performed at the 2016 Queer Arts Festival.
Another politically charged festival highlight is An AIDS Activist’s Memoir, performed by the Acacia Quartet and narrated by Australian composer Chan, who conceived of the work during the height of the epidemic.
Art and social politics will be further explored in Buddies in Bad Times and frank theatre production The Pink Line, a new play about the history of art, activism, and racism.
Queer Noise will offer an evening of short film, video, and media art performances by artists such as Kami Chisholm, Rémy Huberdeau, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Larose S. Larose, Blaire Fukumura, Scott Fitzpatrick, Elisha Lim, and more.
Toronto ensemble Contact, with composter Allison Cameron will present A Gossamer Bit, a fusion of avant-garde jazz, Charles Ives, and hypnotic music.
This year’s festival runs from June 21 to 30 at the Roundhouse Community Centre (181 Roundhouse Mews). The new dates reference and pay tribute to the Stonewall Riots, which began on June 28, 1969, in New York City. The Stonewall Riots are credited with the formation of the modern queer-rights movement. VIEW ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Image Credit: 7 Devils Dead is one of three paintings by Vancouver artist Attila Richard Lukacs that the Queer Arts Festival’s 2016 visual arts exhibition will centre around.