A collection of photographs contributed by 2SLGBTQIA+ youth about substance use, homelessness, and resiliencies
Curated by: Trevor Goodyear, Christian Barborini, and the Substance Use Beyond the Binary Youth Action Committee
Download digital copy – click on this link.
To browse visual art catalogues documenting SUM gallery’s annual Queer Arts Festival, please click here.
SUM gallery is excited to announce the new SUM-AiR (SUM gallery Artist-in-Residence) program, beginning August 6, 2024! We’re inviting artists and collectives based in the Metro Vancouver area to submit proposals for a 2 – 4 week artist residency in SUM gallery (#425-268 Keefer St., Vancouver).
About SUM gallery:
SUM gallery is Canada’s premiere 2SLGBTQIA+/queer-mandated gallery space, and one of only a handful of queer-mandated art spaces in the world. Situated on the fourth floor of the Sun Wah Building in Vancouver’s historic Downtown Eastside, SUM gallery presents up to five exhibitions per year, a music performance series, plus numerous workshops and public engagement initiatives. The gallery also acts as a key venue for the Queer Arts Festival, our annual interdisciplinary arts festival held each June.
SUM-AiR program:
We are accepting proposals for artist residencies of 2 – 4 weeks duration at SUM gallery, taking place between August 6 and September 13, 2024. The residency is ideal for artists needing short-term space for larger-scale projects, group or collaborative work, development of new work, and/or informal public presentations.
Selected SUM artist(s)-in-residence will be provided access to:
Please click HERE for gallery dimensions and fact sheet.
While we welcome proposals from artists of any discipline, SUM-AiR is ideal for a range of practices including (but not limited to) writing, sound art, film, video, digital art, textiles, painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and DIY printmaking.
SUM gallery cannot provide:
Please note: SUM gallery is not well-suited for practices that require machinery, welding, kilns, access to an industrial sink, or practices involving sustained loud noises or strong smells that infringe on the work of other artists working in adjoining spaces. Dance and movement-based artists should note that SUM gallery does not have a sprung floor.
Eligibility:
To Apply:
Interested artists of any discipline are asked to submit the following:
A one-page proposal that includes:
Cost:
There is no cost to apply to, or to participate in, the SUM-AiR program.
Deadline:
All proposals should be sent as a single email to submission@queerartsfestival.com by July 2, 2024. Please include “SUM-AIR proposal” in the subject heading.
Selected artists will be announced within two weeks of the July 2 deadline.
Questions and Further Info:
Please email submission@queerartsfestival.com
Located on the Lower Ground Floor of Sun Wah Centre, 060-268 Keefer St. Please note that unlike many of our events, this exhibition does not take place in our SUM gallery space on the fourth floor of the Sun Wah Centre.
SUM gallery and the Flavourcel Animation Collective invite you crawl down into the dark depths of the basement for Centipede—a pop-up exhibition of macabre experimental animation on the Lower Ground Level of the Sun Wah Centre. Challenging conventional notions of the medium, Centipede queers the drawn moving image through multi-media installation, 3D projection, and sound experimentation into a haunted cavalcade of ghouls, guts, creepies, and crawlies. Curated by Queer Arts Festival’s Assistant Curator Benjamin Siegl.
Flavourcel is an animation collective of 10 artists based in the Unceded Coast Salish territories. They work collaboratively to make short-form experimental animations that entertain the contemporary narrative of what animation is, and can be. This includes GIFs, music videos, installations, print media, and more. They are heavily settled in collective decision-making structures and aim to keep the collaborative spirit at the core of what they do. In other words; democratizing resources and prioritizing voices that are not so often heard.
“Many of us are institutionally-trained animators, however we felt that the path often laid out for many emerging animators exists in the following binary: to be an independent auteur making animations alone in your basement or to join the animation industry. Both of these routes were limiting in their own ways. We feel that it is important to re-introduce play into animation; the act of making doesn’t have to be so serious or so solitary, it’s always better when you bring your friends along!“
Curator Benjamin Siegl is a multidisciplinary artist and curator, having experience in textiles, graphic design, public murals, animation, painting, illustration, education and arts administration. Recent endeavours include research in the field of queer experimental animation and a strong focus on advocacy for the LGBTQ2S+ artistic community through work with the Pride in Art Society.
Workshop and Artist Residency: Gathering of Wishes and 1000 Paper Butterflies
With Eva Wong & Naoko Fukumaru
SUM gallery
Did you miss our workshops? Drop in anytime during our artist residency to make a butterfly with Eva & Naoko:
Drop-in Oct 14 – 26 | Tue – Sat | 12 – 5:30pm
Workshops:
Sat, Sep 25 at 2pm
Thu, Oct 7 at 6:30pm
Sat, Oct 9 at 2pm
Please register for these workshops through the Eventbrite widget below.
Origami butterflies. A thousand of them. And we’re going to make them all! Eva Wong and Naoko Fukumaru will lead a series of in-person Origami workshops with the goal of making one thousand butterflies for their exhibition, Mass Reincarnation of Wish Fragments, opening Oct 28 at SUM gallery. Guests are also invited to write down their wishes, which will be folded into each Origami butterfly.
Can’t make one of the three scheduled workshops? Eva Wong invites drop-ins at SUM gallery, Tue to Sat, between noon and 5:30pm, beginning Oct 14. Not in Vancouver? You’re also welcome to mail your butterflies and wishes to us! Not handy with Origami, but still want to be involved? We’ll accept just your written wishes, either in person, by mail, or submitted online here—they will be added to a butterfly and will be part of the final installation.
We would like to collect as many wishes as possible by Oct 12.
All Origami butterflies must be received by Oct 26.
Origami butterflies and wishes may be dropped off at or mailed to: SUM gallery, 268 Keefer St #425, Vancouver, BC V6A 1X5.
Please make an appointment to view this exhibition during the hours listed above here.
Mass Reincarnation of Wish Fragments 願片大量転生 (Ganhen Tairyou Tensei)
Artists: Eva Wong & Naoko Fukumaru
SUM gallery
Opening night reception: Oct 28 from 6 – 8pm
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 will showcase 1000 Origami butterflies, made by community members from our Butterfly Workshops, bursting out of a Kintsugi cocoon. The written wishes of our workshop participants will be 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.
Can’t make it to the exhibition in person? View a virtual tour of Mass Reincarnation of Wish Fragments below.
