Queer Arts Festival - Dispersed 2021: it’s not easy being green

For the first time, QAF’s suite of visual art, performance, music, literary and workshop events will be presented in a dispersed format across the Lower Mainland—from the depths of the Sun Wah Centre and rooftop overlooking historic Chinatown, to Mountain View Cemetery, False Creek and QAF’s usual stomping grounds, the Roundhouse Community Arts Centre. Following the success of last year’s online festival, QAF will also have a streaming component.

Event highlights include: Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour and SD Holman’s visual art curation; a fabulously punk Japanese folk music and dance performance from Onibana Taiko and Alvin Erasga Tolentino; and a reimagining of Annea Lockwood’s 20th-century classic, Piano Burning, where fire becomes a vehicle for reclamation and decolonization (yes, they are burning a piano).

Event Lineup

ArtParty!
Saturday July 24, 7:00pm to 10:00pm
Festival Opening | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer
QAF’s opening: animating the Sun Wah Building from the basement, to the SUM gallery to the rooftop overlooking Chinatown and beyond, they’re launching the Dispersed QAF in champagne style with DJ O Show.

it’s not easy being green: Curated Visual Art Exhibition and Tour

Saturday July 24 to Friday August 13
Visual Art | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer Lower Ground
Navigating the heart breaking and familiar landscape of apocalyptic post-colonial collapse, artists selected by Co-Curators Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour and SD Holman explore how Queer Art unfurls and blooms in continued and stubbornly vibrant survival.

Tuesday July 27, 5:00pm
Visual Art Tour | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer
Come together for our Visual Art Tour with the curators Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour and SD Holman, guest artists, and a gallery of intimate friends old and new.

Language as a Virus: Queer isolation stories
Saturday July 24 to Friday August 13
Sonic Installation | around False Creek & Online
An interactive audio/radio/networked soundwork from Bobbi Kozinuk that invites the user to explore themes around the COVID pandemic and its effect on queer and diverse communities.

Language as a Virus: The Tour
Monday July 26, 5:00pm
Audio Art Tour | Creek Side CC (TBC) False Creek
Join artist Bobbi Kozinuk in an exploration of her work, Language as a Virus: Queer Isolation Stories.

Studio (ob)Sessions
Monday July 26 – throughout festival
Digital Discourse | Online | tbd
In the connective void that has been this pandemic pause, QAF takes you on a few house calls. Visit with several festival artists in their creation spaces, a digital dialogue to allow a connection from the artist in their corner of space to you and where you call your place.

Screen Greenery
Saturday July 31, 9:00pm
Media Art Screening | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer Rooftop
BYOB (bring your own blanket and that other B) Curated by Fergie and Ben! Rooftop screening of edutainment for the pandemic- very queer and rather green short films.

Queerotica
Monday August 2, 8:00pm
Literary Readings | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer Rooftop
Curated by Josie Boyce, slip into a little green something and enjoy readings by Vancouverite writers. Bring your own blanket or chair.

Onibana Taiko and Alvin Erasga Tolenti
Saturday August 7, 8:00pm
Dance and Musical Performance | Mountain View Cemetery
When Japanese folk tradition meets punk, audience members are invited to commune with the ancestors via obon dance, song, sensu (fan) cheerleading, fue, shamisen and kick-ass taiko.

Piano Burning
Sunday August 8, 8:00pm
Performance Art| Mountain View Cemetery
QAF and Full Circle First Nations Performance present new commissions by Russell Wallace and Evan Ducharme reimagining Annea Lockwood’s classic work, performed by Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa.

Glitter is Forever
Friday August 13, 7:00pm to 10:00pm
Closing | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer Rooftop
Join the festival closing and take your last chance to see all the art @ QAF 2021 at the Sun Wah Building from the basement, to the SUM gallery to the rooftop.

Kindred Spirits
Saturday July 24 – Friday August 13
Community Visual Art | Online
The digital culmination of the Kindred Spirits digital artist residency run by and for 2Spirit and Indigiqueer artists. Guided by Faculty members Dayna Danger, DJ O Show, Raven Davis and Art Auntie Shane Sable, this digital exhibition focuses on re-storying 2Spirit identities and futures through community connection and self-portraiture beyond colonial constructs.

Pride in Art Community Show
Saturday July 24 – Friday August 13
Visual Art | SUM & Sun Wah 268 Keefer
The community show honours Pride in Art founder, activist, and Two-Spirit artist Robbie Hong’s legacy with an open community exhibition. This year, QAF is throwing what was once refused up on their walls. Join community artists in a Salon des Refusés (or perhaps Recyclés) celebrating works that were previously censored or rejected.

Pillows for the Pandemic
Wednesday July 28, 7:30pm
Workshop | SUM gallery or Online
Falak Vasa leads us in a pillow-making workshop, based off of their own series of pillows created during the ongoing covid-19 pandemic offering small comforts that are controllable.

Queerer than Queer: Lessons from Nonduality for Deep Planetary Healing
Thursday August 5, 7:00pm
Workshop | SUM gallery or Online
Is the universe queerer than we can suppose? From the foot of the Himalayas in Himachal Pradesh, Tejal Shah will guide us through this interactive workshop. Explore the possible impact that an embodied understanding of nonduality can have on our affective world and relationships to ‘others’.

Gathering of Wishes and 1000 Paper Butterflies
Wednesday August 4, 6:00pm
Workshop | SUM gallery or Online
Naoko Fukumaru and Eva Wong in Phase 1 of Mass Reincarnation of Wish Fragments 願片大量転生 (Ganhen Tairyou Tensei), where participants create origami and utilize the ink bleeding process to create a butterfly with their own unique patterns and colours.

More info