Visual Arts

WINDOW DISPLAY
RESILIENCE IS WHEN THE DIFFICULTIES OF SURVIVAL BECOME MUNDANE
October 27 - November 20
VALU CO-OP, 525 Carrall Free
This piece was originally created by artist Tray Ma after the summer of 2020, during which his mom received intensive cancer treatment. A year later in 2021, his mother passed away but the theme stays the same. In the midst of COVID-19 and the grief that comes with each wave, resilience is surviving through extended difficult times. It's a pivot and an adjustment to a different world. Resilience is taking care of each other, showing up consistently, and adjusting the routines of life to account for the uncertainties of an illness, a pandemic, a death, a colonial police state. Tray Ma is a queer Chinese-Canadian comic creator and sticker enthusiast living on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. They make what makes them happy, even if it’s a little sad. This is the first of a series of window displays highlighting intersectional and intergenerational stories produced by VALU CO-OP x Love Intersections in collaboration with Chinatown Today. They are grateful to the DTES Heart of the City Festival for supporting the launch of this series!

EXHIBITION
50 YEARS OF CREATIVE COLLABORATION
October 27 - November 27
Meet the artists, Wed Oct 27, 5pm - 7pm
Carnegie 3rd floor Gallery, 401 Main Free
Terry Hunter (Nang Gulgaa) and Savannah Walling (hl Gat’saa), co-founders of Vancouver Moving Theatre (1983) and Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival (2004), invite you to visit this retrospective photo exhibit designed by Mildred Grace German to celebrate the 50th anniversary of their collaborative creative journey. This exhibit is an intergenerational collaboration between multidisciplinary artists Mildred German, born and raised in the Philippines, Savannah Walling, Oklahoma-born Vietnam War migrant, and Terry Hunter, born in Nelson, BC.

Born just before Terry and Savannah founded Vancouver Moving Theatre, Mildred is excited to learn about their history. Terry and Savannah share Mildred’s belief that "Art not only inspires and moves mountains, but also heals and makes amends." Gallery hours: Monday to Sunday, 9am to 9pm

EXHIBITION
MASS REINCARNATION OF WISH FRAGMENTS 願片大量転生 (GANHEN TAIRYOU TENSEI)
October 28 - December 15
Opening Reception, Thurs Oct 28, 6pm - 8pm
SUM Gallery, #425 - 268 Keefer Free
Eva Wong and Naoko Fukumaru’s collaboration brings together the traditional Japanese practices of origami and kintsugi to tell a tale of queer transformation. This exhibit showcases 1000 origami butterflies, made by community members from our Butterfly Workshops, bursting out of a kintsugi cocoon. The written wishes of the workshop participants are hidden within the folds of each butterfly, carried away to be answered by the gods. Kintsugi, long considered a metaphor for the embracing of one’s imperfections, is the art of repairing broken pottery by mending the cracks with gold. Paired with the butterfly’s story of transformation, Mass Reincarnation of Wish Fragments reflects themes that are common in 2SLGBTQ+ culture, especially the transgender experience. For more information: https://sumgallery.ca/mass-reincarnation-oƒ-wish-fragments/ Gallery hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 12pm - 6pm.

VISUAL ARTS
VANCOUVER OUTSIDER ARTS FESTIVAL TOURING SHOW
October 29 - December 29
Meet the artists, Sat Nov 6, 12pm - 3pm
Lost + Found Cafe, 33 W. Hastings Free
This year the Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival, presented October 15-17 by the Community Arts Council of Vancouver, inaugurates a Touring Show that features up to twelve visual artists and three performers selected by their fellow participating festival artists. The first stop on the tour is Vancouver’s Lost + Found Café, where you will have the opportunity to meet the artists on Sat Nov 6. The Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival offers visual and performing artists facing social exclusion and other barriers opportunities for exhibition and sales, performance and participation, connection, and learning. VOAF is Canada’s first and only festival for Outsider Art. Cafe hours: Mon to Fri 8:30am - 3:30pm; Sat 9am - 3:30pm.

VISUAL ARTS
SPIRIT WORKS: THE ART OF NOVIADI ANGKASAPURA
Until October 31
Outsiders and Others, 716 E. Hastings Free
Outsiders and Others is thrilled to feature works by Indonesian artist Noviadi Angkasapura, whose work has never been shown in Vancouver. Born in Jayapura, West Papua – Eastern Indonesia, Angkasapura is not a trained artist. He began drawing seriously in 2001 after a mystical experience; he was visited by a spirit-like being who gave him the name KI RADEN SASTRO INGGIL. This name is often written into his drawings. The presence of this spirit is always with Angkasapura when he draws. The figures in his drawings are encounters with internal and external forces, and though he senses the dramas played out, he does not know much more about them. He thinks that those who understand the spirit’s intentions will understand the drawings. For more information: www.outsidersandothers.com. Gallery hours: Friday to Sunday, 11am - 4pm. 

EXHIBITION
BEYOND THE FRAME
November 3 - November 6
Drop in tour, Fri Nov 5, 1pm - 2pm
InterUrban Gallery, 1 E. Hastings, entrance on Carrall Free
Beyond the Frame is a collaborative project connecting community storytellers with local artists to create original comic works, led by Megaphone
Magazine. At this exhibition, view process works from initial sketches to final comics, of storyteller and artist collaborators Yvonne Mark and Louie Wilson; Kris Cronk and Tajliya Jamal; Joan Morelli and Tiffany Muñoz; Suzanne Kilroy/Huculak and Whess Harmon; and Mark Irvine and TJ Felix. The storytellers come from diverse backgrounds and all are Megaphone vendors with a lived experience of poverty and marginalization. This is the first time their spoken words have been showcased in the medium of comics. Each storyteller was paired with an artist, who over the course of multiple meetings, visually interpreted the vendors’ stories in their own illustrative styles. Since August 2021, one comic has been published each month in Megaphone, concluding with a final issue in December. Limited capacity, first come first serve, COVID measures in place. Gallery hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 1pm - 5pm.

EXHIBITION
COLOUR THEORY: AN ANTI-RACISM ART EXHIBIT
Until November 9
Massy Arts Gallery, 23 E. Pender Free
Colour Theory: An Anti-Racist Art Exhibit is a travelling visual arts exhibit curated by Angelique Bulosan.  This anti-racism program and art exhibit themes include social justice, racial justice, Indigenous reconciliation, showcasing multiculturalism in the arts, and highlighting the experiences of  BIPOC artists in Canada. Developed out of a series of facilitated discussions that explore experiences around racism, the exhibit showcases visual art and storytelling pieces that are shared with the general public to spark dialogues around racism. For more information: https://massyarts.com/event/colour-theory/. Gallery hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 12pm - 5pm. 

EXHIBITION
REVOLVING: A FAMILY TALE
Until November 27
Centre A, #205 - 268 Keefer Free
Revolving: a family tale is a multimedia exhibit by Toronto-based artist Sona Safaei-Sooreh that revisits the semi-colonial history of the Iranian oil industry. In part, it takes the form of a comic script printed in traditional tabloid-size newspapers, attempting to compare the story of the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry with present-day political affairs. Curated by Henry Heng Lu. For more information: centrea.org. Gallery hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 12pm - 6pm.

EXHIBITION
LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN: FOR THE OTHERWISE UNACCOUNTED
Until December 4
Audain Gallery, 149 W. Hastings Free
In this solo exhibition, Dubai-based artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan explores reincarnation as a medium for justice. Once Removed (2019) offers a video portrait of the young writer and historian who amassed a startling archive of material in an effort to understand his “memories” of fighting in the Lebanese Civil War — a war he was not yet alive to experience. The image and text work For the Otherwise Unaccounted (2020) considers claims of reincarnation in people whose birthmarks indicate a violent death in their previous life: the only enduring trace of trauma that otherwise escaped the historical record. Together, Abu Hamdan’s works examine how testimony is stored in the body, and attempt to make visible and audible a new category of witness, one that has yet to be accepted into the generation of history. For more information: 

www.sfu.ca/galleries/audain-gallery/FtOU.html

VISUAL ARTS
LOOK TOWARDS THE SUN
Until December 23
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, 578 Carrall
Look Towards the Sun is an artistic exchange between Lam Wong, a Chinese Canadian diaspora artist from Hong Kong and Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, an artist of Cowichan and Syilx First Nations ancestry. All living beings and spirits are interconnected. We reside under the same sun. Creating reflection and dialogue on environmental concerns and the interconnectedness of place, people, and culture is at the essence of this exhibition. Yuxweluptun’s bold paintings unreservedly celebrate and assert Indigenous ways of living and being. His work shines a powerful light on Indigenous title, rights, and sovereignty on unceded territories. Wong’s expressive paintings and contemplations as an immigrant shape his practice as the artist-in-residence at Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. This show includes a personal response to the horrific findings of the remains of 215 children buried at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, the school that Yuxweluptun is a survivor of. For ticket information and Garden hours, go to vancouverchinesegarden.com

VISUAL ARTS
WAVE HANDS, LIKE CLOUDS, NOT EYES
Until January 15, 2022
Or Gallery, 236 E. Pender Free
wave hands, like clouds, not eyes is an exhibition by Serena Lee that offers an atmosphere of sound, scent, and substances in flux, reflecting the feeling of taijiquan internal martial arts practice, Daoist principles and yin yang cosmology. This 'speculative spa' convenes Vancouver artists and invites guests to take off their shoes, recalibrate their senses and experience of time in an intimate, immersive space. Playfully critical of the neo-liberal imperative of relaxation towards optimized productivity, this 'spa' is a slippery and contradictory space – and embraces the qualities of sinking, rising, expanding, flowing, and emptying, as aspects of an embodied knowledge practice that softly resists colonial logic. Limited entry, no appointments required, short wait may be necessary. COVID measures in place. For more info: http://orgallery.org.  Gallery hours: Tues to Sat, 12pm-5pm.