Below are snippets of articles that I have written for The Source Newspaper located in Vancouver. The newspaper highlights events around Vancouver that bring together community and are examples of culture, art, and diversity.
(Volume 17, Issue 08 – April 25–May 9, 2017)
Gabi Dao, artist.| Photo courtesy of Gabi Dao
Gabi Dao is a Vancouver-based artist whose work in installations and sound has earned her a media residency at the Western Front. Over the next several months, Dao will produce a series of podcasts, which will culminate in a live public event in the fall of 2017.
Dao is a second generation Chinese-Vietnamese woman whose artistic passion was initially met with opposition. Growing up in a culture where art took a back seat to traditional studies like maths and sciences, Dao pursued other creative outlets such as classical piano before eventually dedicating herself to her art. With her parents’ support, she studied contemporary art during her undergrad at the Emily Carr University of Art and Design. From there, her interests grew.
“I wanted to do something that frightened me,” Dao explains. “I started to hit up sculpting classes, and after that, I wanted to do something even more challenging. I started taking sound classes as a way to revisit experiences I had playing classical music, but thinking about it in a way that wasn’t following constructs.” (Read more…)
Capturing moments through words
(Volume 17, Issue 07)
Spoken word artist, Ev Montinola | Photo courtesy of Vancouver Poetry House
The art of poetry goes beyond the typical rhyming scheme taught in school and extends to using poetry as a platform to speak out against injustice, create mindful haiku, and project powerful spoken word, all forms practiced by local poets that will be highlighted during National Poetry Month.
The celebration, which began in 1996 in New York City, was adopted in Canada in 1998 to celebrate poetry within Canadian culture.
Giving a voice for the silent
Vancouver-based activist poet, Rita Wong, has been writing poetry most of her life, first publishing a poem in the Calgary Sun as a fourth grader.
“[Poetry] is open to drawing unexpected connections through language, imagery and metaphor,” Wong says. “It gives you a glimpse into the immediate moment, and when you accumulate many of these moments through poems, you start to find clusters of patterns. It cultivates an attentiveness and a care for the world as well as the self.”
Poetry has been a platform for Wong in order to stand up and protect the only world we know. Why? According to Wong, someone has to.
“Poetry has led me to find kindred spirits and to connect with a community that cares about peace, love and justice,” she says. (Read more…)
(Volume 17, Issue 05 – March 7-21 2017)
Photo by Diana Borsato
The Moon is Often Referred to as a Dead, Barren World, but I Think This is Not Necessarily the Case, a collaboration between international conceptual artist Diane Borsato and the local Ikebana flower arrangement community will use live plant material in a white, empty gallery space to portray the contrast and the beauty of life within the barren.
“I imagine the contemporary art gallery like a moon in a sense. It’s sterile, white, devoid of life,” says Borsato.
Supported by The Vancouver Foundation, the one-night installation will be held at the Contemporary Art Gallery on Mar. 25 from 6–9 p.m. (Read more…)
(Volume 17, Issue 04 – February 21-March 7, 2017
Kara-lee MacDonald, author of Eating Matters. | Photo courtesy of Caitlin Press
Jane Byers and Kara-lee MacDonald will be reading their poetry at the Notional Space in East Vancouver, on Feb. 22, along with Elizabeth Bachinsky and Leanne Dunic.
Both poets found their form of expression through poetry that speaks of resilience. Byers writes about LGBT history in her new book, Acquired Community (Caitlin Press, 2016) while MacDonald details her struggles with bulimia in her own collection, Eating Matters (Caitlin Press, 2016). (Read more…)
(Volume 17, Issue 03 – February 7–21, 2017)
Severn Thompson as Elle. | Photo by Michael Cooper
Firehall Arts Centre presents Elle, a play about a French aristocrat stranded on an island on the East Coast of Canada. Severn Thompson is the leading lady and also wrote the play as an adaptation of Douglas Glover’s novel of the same name. Christine Brubaker is the play’s innovative director. It will be live at the Firehall Arts Centre from Feb. 8–18.
Elle, otherwise known as the French noblewoman Marguerite de La Rocque de Roberval, is not a typical woman of the 16th century. Aboard the ship with Jacques Cartier on one of his last attempts to claim new lands for France, Elle, along with her maid and lover, gets abandoned on the Isle of Demons after being caught in a scandalous situation unfit for a proper lady.
After the death of her companions, Elle experiences a journey of survival where she must learn to live in and within nature despite her European upbringing. Her humour and strong will keep her alive as she creates a camp on the island and reflects inwardly about herself in relation to the new land and what would eventually become Canada.
“This character of Elle is such a mystic in her own time. She was contemporary in a way and very relatable,” says Thompson. “It sort of melted the centuries between us, and I was completely transported to her reality in 1542 in Canada.” (Read more…)
Foreign Radical: a game of secrets
(Volume 17, Issue 02 – January 24–February 7, 2017)
Four quadrants of Foreign Radical. | Photo courtesy of Studio 1398
Personal experience ignited the imagination of writer/director Tim Carlson for Foreign Radical, a play with an interactive set up similar to a murder mystery. Thirty audience members, split into four quadrants to gather information, are exposed to real-life prejudices and privacy invasions. Foreign Radical will be appearing at Studio 1398 from Feb. 6–11.
“Online, on social media, people offer opinions. They debate. They decide how to interact with each other,” Carlson says. “You can meet anyone online and have a debate, constructive or not. Can that happen when people are standing side by side?”
The interactive dramatization allows people from all races, religions and genders to look inward and react to these situations. Based on their interpretations and interactions with other participants, they must determine the innocence of a young Iranian Canadian who’s under suspicion by the government. (Read more…)
(Volume 17, Issue 01 – January 10–24, 2017)
Mere Phantoms explores commonalities between three cities.| Photo courtesy of Mere Phantoms.
Maya Ersan and Jaimie Robson, the duo behind Mere Phantoms, use paper prints to create miniature cities. Handheld lights are shone upon the paper structures to bring the shadows to life on the blank walls of the room. Their exhibition, Three Cities: Prayer and Protest, will be on display at the Grunt Gallery from Jan. 12 to Feb. 18, 2017.
The exhibition focuses on three cities: Istanbul, Vancouver, and Montreal. Ersan initially grew up in Turkey before moving to Vancouver to study art. It was there she met Robson. Together they’ve travelled from city to city before settling in Montreal where they create their shadow installations as well as run their ceramics studio.
The commonalities between all three cities are the protests and outrage caused by factors such as police violence, gentrification, and tuition hikes which ultimately lead to losing access to city art spaces. Through their work, Mere Phantoms is able to create a live experience for their audience to immerse themselves in the piece. (Read more…)
Layers of Influence: weaving cultures together
(Volume 16, Issue 32 – December 6, 2016–January 10, 2017)
Asanta adrinka cloth from Ghana.| Photo courtesy of Jennifer Kramer.
Anthropology professor and curator, Jennifer Kramer, kicked off the Layers of Influence exhibition at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) at UBC on Nov. 17, 2016. The textile exhibition displays cloths from various cultures – Tibetan robes to Indian saris – and runs until Apr. 9, 2017.
“There’s a combination of pure, aesthetic appreciation,” Kramer says. “You can go in and just be wrapped in textiles and have a very emotional and bodied experience, but at the same time, there is contextual information.”
Kramer has been a curator at the MOA since 2003 and has curated six exhibitions, with Layers of Influence her second major one. She says this display is not a typical history museum or an art gallery display. Rather, the MOA likes to blur the lines between art and anthropology. (Read more…)
(Volume 16, Issue 30 – November 8 -22, 2016)
Akko Beach (Echo Beach), watercolour. | Photo courtesy of Sandy Blass
Watercolour painter Sandy Blass will be appearing at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver (JCCGV) to debut her first solo exhibit No Other Country… The exhibit expresses Blass’ inner feelings toward her dual identity of being from both Canada and Israel.
As a Diaspora Jew, Blass finds herself in the middle of two cultures. Born and raised in Calgary before moving to Vancouver, Blass identifies as a Canadian, however, her connection to Israel springs from growing up in a rich Jewish culture. Blass says she is not simply from one land, but from both. (Read more…)
Eija Jimenez 