The 2019 Vancouver Queer Arts Festival Speaks to the rEvolution
The annual Queer Arts Festival (QAF), Vancouver’s artist-run, professional, multi-disciplinary roister of queer arts, culture and history, takes place this year from June 17 – 28, 2019.
QAF’s 2019 theme rEvolution assembles nearly 100 artists and more than 20 events and programming showcasing a variety of differing media, and will be on exhibit at the Roundhouse Arts Centre (181 Roundhouse Mews) in Vancouver, British Columbia.
QAF rEvolution gathers together artists who dissemble, push and transgress; art as the evolution of the revolution.
“For generations, our communities have carved spaces out of a hostile world, spaces where we can make art, sing and dance and draw and rhyme and fuck our resistance; spaces that meld struggle with celebration, politics with sex, serious purpose with more fabulousness than anyone could ever swallow. QAF was specifically created as one of these spaces, a place for queer artists to do the things that are hard to do as queers in the art world, as well as those things that are hard to do as artists in the queer world, including—perhaps especially—at the intersections that get stonewalled in both worlds.”. SD Holman, Artistic Director
2019 Event Highlights Include:
Art Party! | Gala Opening Reception | Tue Jun 18 | 7 -10pm
The 3rd largest art opening to take place in Vancouver Yearly. Art and conviviality converge at the grand opening of the 2019 QAF.
Relational Revolutions | Visual Art Exhibition | Tue Jun 17 - Wed Jun 26
Our signature curated visual art exhibition for 2019, Relational Revolutions, posits a rumination on the theme of rEvolution and extends an invitation to recalibrate our desires, how we hope, how we sense, how we love, and above all to re-examine our relationships with each other, with the land, with time, with form and with space.
Curator Elwood Jimmy, of the Thunderchild First Nation, is an artist, facilitator, cultural manager and writer. This exhibit will showcase an eclectic array of artists including Thirza Cuthand, Raven Davis, Vanessa Dion Fletcher, Alexandra Gelis, Jessica Karuhanga, Lisa Myers, David Ng, Jessa Chse, and Ty Sloane.
The Queen in Me | Multidisciplinary Performance | Fri Jun 21 & Sat Jun 22 | 7pm
Exploding operatic expectations, soprano Teiya Kasahara 笠原貞野 explores the constraints of conventional opera roles and their reliance on gender and sex stereotypes, combining Mozart’s Queen of the Night and other classic arias with original text.
The Wide Open | Media Art Program | Wed Jun 26 | 7pm | with Vancouver Indigenous Media Arts Festival
Lacie Kanerahtahsóhon Burning curates in the 3rd edition of QAF’s collaboration with VIMAF, exploring shared and emerging histories to highlight discourses within Queered experiences and its intersections. Including Fallon Simard, Alec Butler, and more.
Queer Songbook Orchestra | Fri Jun 28 | 7pm
Celebrated national chamber ensemble Queer Songbook Orchestra unearth the queer backstories and personal narratives inspired by music of the past several generations. Weaving together stories told by local narrators with arrangements by Canada’s foremost composers.
Followed by Stonewall 50 Glitter is Forever.
On the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots that launched modern-day Pride, QAF’s final blowout gathers together our communities to revel in a half-century of queerevolution. Stonewall was a riot — now, we dance!
At SUM Gallery during QAF
69 Positions: Circa Omnibus
May 14-Aug 17 | Visual Art Exhibition at SUM #425 - 268 Keefer St. The west coast stop of Queer Media Database Canada-Québec Project’s touring exhibition, marking the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Omnibus which decriminalized sodomy. In partnership with VIVO and the Vancouver Queer Film Festival.
About the Queer Arts Festival (queerartsfestival.com):
The Queer Arts Festival (QAF) is an annual artist-run professional multi-disciplinary arts festival at the Roundhouse in Vancouver, BC. Recognized as one of the top 5 festivals of its kind worldwide, QAF produces, presents and exhibits with a curatorial vision favouring challenging, thought-provoking work that pushes boundaries and initiates dialogue. Each year, the festival theme ties together a curated visual art exhibition, performing arts series, workshops, artist talks, panels, and media art screenings. QAF’s programming has garnered wide acclaim as “concise, brilliant and moving” (Georgia Straight), “easily one of the best exhibitions of the year in Vancouver” (Vancouver Sun), some of the most adventurous of any local arts festival” (Vancouver Province) and “on the forefront of aesthetic and cultural dialogue today” (Xtra)
For more information and interview requests, please contact: BARB SNELGROVE (megamouthmedia consulting)
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Press Release
QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL
Location
Roundhouse Arts Centre
181 Roundhouse Mews
Vancouver, BC
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