tempadmin, Author at SUM GALLERY

FOREST / FLUX / FREQUENCY—Rafael Zen + Khalil Alomar

Nov 7 – 16, 2024

FOREST / FLUX / FREQUENCY is both a multimedia installation + sound performance. First, conceptually and fantastically – it is a conversation between an old tree + a cyber-bug through experimental electronic music, sound performance, hauntology, and eco-dreaming; then, materially, as an exploration of art fields that interest artists Rafael Zen and Khalil Alomar – multispecies collaboration (combining the sounds of humans + nature : birds > bugs > waves > wind), speculative environmental composition (by imagining a future when nature can only be accessed through screens and projections), and improvisational sound art (live performance of the speculative soundscape of an electro-forest).

The opening reception takes place on November 7, from 7 – 9pm, with Zen and Alomar performing live in the gallery. FOREST / FLUX / FREQUENCY runs at SUM gallery, Tuesday to Saturday from noon – 6pm, until November 16, 2024.

: : : : : : : : : : :

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

RAFAEL ZEN /// The world is in convulsion, and so are we.* Rafael Zen is a queer and fiery Brazilian-Canadian multimedia artist and sound performer, currently living on the land of the Coast Salish peoples – Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam. There, he researches intersections between new media, performance, and environmental hauntology/speculative environmental composition/performance mediated with/through technology. In colonially-called Vancouver, he organizes Durations, an independent sound art and video art festival that offers an open stage for emerging artists exploring the fields of new media, sound, video art, and live performance. Academically, he holds a Master’s degree in Visual Arts – Contemporary Artistic Processes, where he researches anti-colonial and anti-capitalist poetic practices, and political counterattacks through contemporary art. Currently, he is researching New Media and Sound Art at Emily Carr University.

*Brazilian theorist Suely Rolnik (Spheres of Insurrection / 2017).

KHALIL ALOMAR /// Khalil Alomar is a queer Lebanese-Canadian artist whose creative practice primarily revolves around sound art, multimedia installation, and performance. He works through anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, and anti-establishment theory and practice. Currently, he is pursuing a degree in New Media and Sound Art at Emily Carr University. Alomar lives in the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Selíl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. His recent practice is centered on sound, video/paper collage, and photography as mediums that provide a platform for critiquing systemic aggressions and abuse.

FOREST / FLUX / FREQUENCY: Sound Performance
November 16, 2-4 pm

Join us at SUM gallery for the final day of our exhibition, FOREST / FLUX/ FREQUENCY by Khalil Alomar and Rafael Zen, for a special performance by the artists. This free, improvisational sound-based performance evokes an electro-forest in a future when nature can only be accessed through screens and projections

Saturday, November 16 at 2pm

SUM gallery (#425 – 268 Keefer St.)

SUM AiR—SJ Kirsch

Sept 5 – 27, 2024

We’re excited to welcome SJ Kirsch as a SUM-AiR artist-in-residence from September 5 – 27, 2024. SJ will use this residency to expand their fluency in a number software programs, providing the foundation of their multimedia, interdisciplinary project, Enbian Love Songs: experiential odes for the liminally-inclined. This site-specific project will explore liminality as a safe space through community sound gatherings, installation, and performances.

ABOUT

An accomplished interpreter of western art music, SJ Kirsch (they/she) has performed across Canada, in Europe and West Asia as a soloist and collaborator. They have been hailed as “…one of the finest contemporary dramatic vocalists in Canada today,” (Calgary Herald) “…with the ability to get under the skin of everything she sings,” (Winnipeg Free Press).

Beyond opera and oratorio, SJ curates and produces sociopolitically relevant art song experiences of works from the last three centuries. An avid and capable interpreter of new music, they have premiered more than 30 new works for voice by Canadian composers. Chorally, SJ currently serves as a section leader for the Vancouver Bach Choir family and will join the ranks of Musica Intima for the 2022-23 season.

As a creator/composer, SJ weaves electroacoustic tapestries inspired by the primally physical nature of resonance. As a pundit, they lecture on the ins and outs of western art music, wholistic programming, and vocal liberation for cultural and educational institutions, on podcasts, and on CiTR 101.9 FM. As a pedagog, they keep a small studio of private students from around the world.

SJ earned their BMus at the University of Colorado Boulder College of Music and MMus from the University of Manitoba Desautels Faculty of Music. They are also a laureate of the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition and have received project and commissioning support from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Manitoba Arts Council, the Winnipeg Arts Council, the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg and many generous individuals for whom they are deeply grateful.

SUM AiR—Rafael Zen + Khalil Alomar

Aug 12 – 30, 2024

We’re pleased to welcome our SUM gallery artists-in-residence (SUM-AiR), Rafael Zen and Khalil Alomar, to SUM gallery, Aug 12 – Aug 30, 2024. Throughout the month of August Rafael and Khalil will be developing their project, FOREST / FLUX / FREQUENCY : QUEERING ECO-UTOPIAS: a new media artwork inspired by eco-futurism, queer futurities, and speculative environmental composition and expressed through field-recording, multispecies composition, and multimedia installation.

ABOUT

RAFAEL ZEN is a queer Latinx media artist + performer, currently living in the land of the Coast Salish peoples – Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam. Here, he researches intersections between new media, performance, and cultural identity, and organizes Durations, an independent sound art + video art festival that offers an open stage for emerging artists. Rafael works at Emily Carr University as a Research Assistant for the New Media + Sound Art program. Academically, he holds a Master’s degree in Visual Arts – Contemporary Artistic Processes, researching anti-colonial + anti-capitalist poetic practices, and political counterattacks through artistic practices. Currently he is pursuing a degree in New Media + Sound Art at Emily Carr University.

KHALIL ALOMAR is a queer Lebanese-Canadian artist whose creative practice primarily revolves around collage, multimedia installation, and performance. He works through anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, and anti establishment theory and practice. Currently, Kahlil is pursuing a degree in New Media +Sound Art at Emily Carr University. He lives in the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Selíl witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. His recent practice is centered on sound, video/paper collage, and photography as mediums that provide a platform for critiquing systemic aggressions and abuse.

Rafael Zen + Khalil Alomar: OPEN REHEARSAL
August 27, 6:30-7:30 pm

Join SUM-AiR Artists-in-Residence Rafael Zen and Khalil Alomar on Tuesday, August 27, from 6:30pm – 7:30pm for an Open Rehearsal of their new media project-in-progress, FOREST / FLUX / FREQUENCY : QUEERING ECO-UTOPIAS. Rafael and Khalil will present a half hour demonstration of live electronics and visuals, followed by an opportunity for audience interaction where guests will be invited to interact with audio equipment and contribute their own sounds to the forest.

SUM AiR—ilvs strauss

Jul 24 – Aug 9, 2024

We’re pleased to welcome our SUM gallery artist-in-residence (SUM-AiR), ilvs strauss, to SUM gallery, July 26 – Aug 9, 2024. Over the coming weeks, ilvs (pronounced “elvis”, pronouns she/her) will be developing her project, “everything i heard over the course of the day all at once”: a multimedia performance project that is part informative lecture, part love letter, and part immersive concert. In addition to her SUM-AiR residency, ilvs will be leading a free Open House event on August 9 and a QLab workshop on August 10 — read on for more info.

ABOUT ilvs strauss

ilvs strauss (pronounced “elvis”, pronouns she/her) is an analytical chemist turned multi-disciplinary performance artist and theatre technician living and making work in the unceded and ancestral lands of the Coast Salish People. Born in California, raised in Portland, and working in Seattle before relocating to Vancouver, ilvs has worked extensively in the fields of dance, sound art, poetry, multimedia and visual art, and has also worked as a technical director, lighting designer, and strategic facilitator.

Open House: ilvs strauss
Friday August 9, 5 – 7pm

Join us at SUM gallery on Friday, August 9, from 5pm – 7pm, as we celebrate ilvs strauss’s residency with an Artist-in-Residence Open House. This will be a unique opportunity to meet ilvs and experience her most recent work-in-progress, an integrated media performance piece focused on Sound.

Bring your ears for a guided journey through a labyrinth of intentional sound, audible and otherwise. Along the way, we’ll flip through the catalog of basic human needs, delve into an inquiry re: the advent of language, and watch a video of the letter ’n’ being typed repeatedly in a word document, amongst other things. A discerning, bilingual listening party that raises the questions: What is it we hear? What is it we want to hear?

(Oye, mi español no es 100%, so I used Google Translate. Espero que makes sense. -ilvs)
Únase a nosotros en la galería SUM el viernes, 9 de agosto, de 5 p. m. a 7 p. m., mientras celebramos la residencia de ilvs strauss con una jornada de puertas abiertas para artistas en residencia. Esta será una oportunidad única para conocer a ilvs y experimentar su trabajo en progreso más reciente, pieza de performance de medios integrados centrada en el sonido.

Traiga sus oídos para un viaje guiado a través de un laberinto de sonido intencional, audible o no. En el camino, hojearemos el catálogo de necesidades humanas básicas, profundizaremos en una investigación sobre: la llegada del lenguaje, y veremos un video de la letra ‘n’ escrita repetidamente en un documento de word, entre otras cosas. Un grupo de escucha bilingüe y perspicaz que plantea las preguntas: ¿Qué es lo que escuchamos? ¿Qué es lo que queremos escuchar?

This Open House is free to attend but registration is recommended. Register HERE.

Workshop: QLab Basics for Creators
Saturday August 10, 2 – 4pm

Come learn the basics of QLab with our SUM gallery artist-in-residence, ilvs strauss! QLab is a multimedia playback software package used in theatre and live entertainment around the world. In other words, it’s the program you use to play sound in your show. It is an essential tool for theatre makers, dancers, live performers and creators of any kind.
In this workshop, you will learn how to import music tracks, how to program a QLab file to play your audio track replete with layers and fades, how to export a show-ready QLab bundle, and other tricks too numerous to list!

You should bring these things:
– your Mac laptop (note: QLab is not compatible with PCs)
– at least one music file (any format, ideally on your laptop)

If you have QLab already, great! If not, we’ll go over how to download it – there’s a free version available that is quite robust. No previous experience required. Come if you already know a few things and want to sharpen your skills! Register for the workshop HERE.

AIR ilvs events

AIR ilvs

AIR Rafael Kahlil

AIR SJ

Go Home Yuppie Scum—Preston Buffalo

Apr 11 – Jun 6, 2024

Taking its title from graffiti that appeared on empty/sold Vancouver houses and lots in the 1980s as part of the local anti-gentrification movement, Go Home Yuppie Scum is an irreverent take on the “Welcome to Vancouver” View-Master reels popular in the 1960s to 1980s, which featured 3D images of Vancouver landmarks as a means of enticing tourists to visit.

By making use of vintage View-Masters and modern stereoscopic viewers stationed around the interior of SUM gallery, Buffalo creates a series of stereoscopic reels that showcase the city from a very different perspective: crumbling, graffiti-adorned structures in the Downtown Eastside, disused rail lines, and thickets of overgrown flora, all eerily devoid of inhabitants. Buffalo applies infrared filters to much of his photographic work, transforming familiar Vancouver scenes into vibrant alien landscapes. The result is a series of urban snapshots that subvert the stereotypical “Beautiful British Columbia” postcard tropes by presenting quasi-dystopian scenes that are unsettling, otherworldly, and beautiful.

This exhibition is part of the 2024 Capture Photography Festival Selected Exhibition Program.

Preston Buffalo, a Two-Spirited Cree artist originally from Treaty 6 Territory, currently resides in the unceded Coast Salish Territories of British Columbia. His interdisciplinary practice involves the exploration of personal Indigenous iconography and symbolism, utilizing photography, alternative photo processes, and digital illustration. Motivated by the challenges faced by Indigenous communities, Preston’s work touches upon themes such as mental health, cultural and linguistic loss due to displacement, the impact of the residential school system, and the process of assimilation. His overall objective is to create visual expressions that encourage new perspectives on Indigenous art, emphasizing its significance in contemporary society and its contribution to an ongoing dialogue.

DRAG BINGO @ Carnegie Centre

Mar 4, 2024 | 5:30 – 8pm

Hosted by Continental Breakfast & Jas Minh

This Monday, March 4, we team up once again with the Carnegie Community Centre to present a very special Drag Bingo, hosted by Continental Breakfast and Jas Minh! Monday night bingo is a much-loved highlight of the Carnegie Centre’s many activities and we’re thrilled to bring the Queer Joy for this event.

Presented in partnership with Queer Arts Festival + SUM gallery