SUM gallery presents: VOCAL QUEERIES WORKSHOP SERIES with sarah jo kirsch!

Sept 10 & Sept 17, 2023

*PLEASE NOTE that this workshop series is now SOLD OUT.

The Vocal Queeries workshop series is open to individuals of all ages, backgrounds, abilities, identities, and orientations who want to explore the expansive spectrum of vocal expression and the unique beauty of their own voices in a safe and inclusive space for exploration and growth.

Whether you’re a vocalist, actor, performance artist, public speaker, or just someone eager to get to know their voice, this series offers a wholistic and intersectional journey into grounded vocalization through collaborative discussion and practice.

IN 4 INTERACTIVE SESSIONS

1. VOCAL QUEERS

Dive into queer sonic philosophy and practice through the work of Pauline Oliveros, Gabriel Dharmoo, Meredith Monk, and more!

2. FUNDAMENTALS OF PHONATION

Explore the miraculous mechanics of vocal production and gain a deeper understanding of how the body functions as an instrument.

3. FULL SPECTRUM RESONANCE

Learn to harness breath momentum, open and balance resonators, and align articulators to ring with ease and flexibility.

4. PRACTICE & PROCESS

Develop a wholistically conscious practice to help build an authentic and reciprocal relationship with your voice and your self.

+ CODA

Each 75-minute session is followed by a 15-minute collaborative reflection and intention-setting.

SESSION SCHEDULE:

Sun, Sept 10:
session 1: 1:00 – 2:30pm
session 2: 3:00 – 4:30pm

Sun, Sept 17:
session 3: 1:00 – 2:30 pm
session 4: 3:00 – 4:30 pm

We recommend you register to attend all four sessions as these workshops are designed as a four-part series, however, you may also register for a single session. All sessions must be registered for individually.

SUGGESTED DONATION:

$200 if you plan to register for the FULL SERIES (use the Pay-What-You-Wish admission option to enter $50 per session)
or
$60 per session

Embracing the Pay-What-You-Wish admission option allows you to pay what you can afford. We encourage those who can contribute more than the suggested rate to do so. It enables aspiring singers more challenged by the cost of living to engage in this transformative experience. Your contribution can make a difference in someone else’s journey and help keep these workshops genuinely inclusive.

YOUR CLINICIAN

Sarah Jo Kirsch is a vocalist steeped in Western European song traditions. They have premiered dozens of new works by Canadian composers, they create their own sound-and text-based electroacoustic works, and they share knowledge about wholistic vocalization and the evolution of organized sound. sarahjokirsch.com

Rojina Farrokhnejad: Gods and Monsters
OCT 14 – DEC 1 | 2023
Opening reception: Oct 14, 5 to 7pm

Mythology offers us valuable life lessons by illuminating our own human behaviour. In Vancouver-based artist Rojina Farrokhnejad’s solo exhibition entitled Gods and Monsters, Farrokhnejad uses mythological figures like Gods, centaurs, mediators, angels, and demons to explore transcendent and timeless human conditions, familial relationships and emotions, like love and lust, envy and rage, rejection and loss, violence and death.

Myth demands to be transplanted into the present, reinterpreted according to present-day ideas or anxieties. Myths should be thought of as constantly-moving turnstiles. To retell is to metamorphose. Meaning is never fixed, but ever fluid — as likely to be arrested as the reflection in water that entranced Narcissus.

A painter, sculptor, and filmmaker, Farrokhnejad’s multidisciplinary exhibit uses figurative art to explore themes of queer sensuality, religiosity, and isolation. Gods and Monsters employs elements of animation, acrylic and oil paintings, and clay and ceramic sculpture to blur the line between the representational and abstract; the grotesque and divine; mythological symbolism and religious devotion. In Gods and Monsters, Farrokhnejad takes on the role of mediator to initiate a non-verbal dialogue where audiences are able to interrogate their own stance: Are we all simply Gods and Monsters, one or the other, or neither? 

ABOUT Rojina Farrokhnejad

Rojina Farrokhnejad (RJ) lives in Vancouver, BC. Originally from Iran, she came to the city in the early 2000s and quickly connected with the LGBT community and found like-minded people, now proudly calling Vancouver home. RJ is renowned for her evocative images of memories & metamorphosis, expressions of solitude, and moments of importance that connect with the audience’s experiences. She uses myth to explore the darker side of human nature and as allegory to encrypt hidden meanings. A painter, sculptor and filmmaker, she works using multiple mediums and techniques like oil, acrylic and clay in layers through a variety of motion, colours, tones and textures, to help provide a sense of narrative. Her most recent works push the boundaries of representation, integrating abstraction within imaginative figurative compositions. Her works have been exhibited at grunt gallery, Gallery Gachet, and the Cultch. 

Queer Arts Festival + SUM gallery is proud community partner for Vancouver Queer Film Festival‘s screening of Shorts: The Coast is Queer
Aug 17, 2023 | 6:30PM
Cineplex Odeon International Village Cinemas

The coast is queerer than ever! VQFF’s annual showcase of homegrown talent is back with a quartet of shorts exploring trans and nonbinary identities, featuring some familiar faces, including Kendall Gender and SKIM.

Screening followed by a drag performance by Mx. Bukuru and a Q&A with the artists!

Content warning: Blood, nudity.

The shorts programme features E.S.S. Scenes, originally seen as part of SUM gallery exhibition STICKY EXTENSIONS: ROMI KIM IN COLLABORATION WITH QUEER BASED MEDIA!

We, The Many

Fri, Aug 18, 2023 | 6pm

Í7iy̓el̓shn | Sunset Beach Park

1204 Beach Ave Vancouver, BC V6E 1V3

ASL Interpretation

Vines Art Festival 2023’s We, The Many highlights 2SLGBTIQIA+ history, existence and art with drag, music and dance. Bringing queer joy to public space acknowledges the ongoing resistance to erasure and destruction of queer spaces, lives and stories. Join us for a vibrant evening of queer brilliance as the sun sets on our glowing bodies.

Co-curated by jaye simpson

In partnership with SUM gallery + Queer Arts Festival

Schedule:

• 6:00 PM – Opening with Cease Wyss
• 6:20 PM – Erin Boy
• 6:40 PM – Izzy Cenedese (Freshly Squeezed)
• “Collection of songs I have written over the past 6 years.”
• 6:45 PM – semillitxs
• 7:10 PM – Anya Anomaly
• 7:20 PM – Cru Alexander Timi (Heritage)
• Heritage is about celebrating being Queer and Black. Heritage is about self expression.
• 7:35 PM – Bo Dyp
• 7:45 PM – Venus Noirre
• 7:55 PM – Dolly Hardon & Vee for Victoria
• 8:10 PM – King Kundo (Let me thrive)
• Story telling of black trans journey, choosing self, self love and self healing.
• 8:20 PM – SKIM
• 8:30 PM – Jas Minh
• 8:45 PM – DJ Nea

For more info on this program, please visit Vines Art Society’s website.

Thu Jun 22 – Fri Jul 28
Exhibition open hours: Tue-Sat, 12 to 6pm

SUM gallery presents a solo exhibition by Odera Igbokwe, an illustrator and painter who celebrates the magic of the African Diaspora and QTBIPOC. New Yams Festival is a direct reflection, response, and Queer reclamation of the New Yam Festival of the Igbo people. Traditionally, it is a celebration of abundance, ancestral veneration, and protection. In referencing The New Yam Festival, Odera seeks to create a visual lineage between Queer Afrofuturism and ancestral rituals.

About Odera Igbokwe

Odera Igbokwe (they/them & he/him) is an illustrator and painter located on the unceded and traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Odera loves to explore storytelling through Afro-diasporic mythologies, Black resilience and magical girl transformation sequences. Their work explores the magic of the Black imagination, and responds to the fractures that occur via diaspora and displacement. Ultimately their paintings celebrate joy, mundanity, and fantasy coexisting alongside pain and healing. As a freelance illustrator, Odera works with clients and galleries to create work that is deeply personal, soulful and intersectional.

ahmm (asian heritage month at morrow)

May 6 – 29, 2023 at Morrow, 910 Richards St, Vancouver

Schedule

• May 6-7 – Pillow Whispers, Sarah Wong
• May 10-14 – Volume Vulva Verve, Kage & Ziyian Kwan
• May 19 – Tetrad Tongues, Anjalica Solomon, Christopher Tse, Johnny Trinh & Sarah Wong
• May 20-21 – Monica vs. The Internet: Tales of a Social Justice Warrior, Monica Ogden & K.P Dennis
• May 26-28 – Bowl of Jasmine, Sujit Vaidya & Juolin Lee
• May 29 – HOY! Merienda Meet & Eat, Joyce Rosario & Anjela Magpantay
• Plus enjoy the Asian Confectionery with highlights of Alger Ji-Liang and Sauha Lee – all month long!

SUM gallery is proud to co-produce ahmm events Volume Vulva Verve and Bowl of Jasmine in partnership with Dumb Instrument Dance.

Volume Vulva Verve (May 10-14) features two vibrant solo works by accomplished creators/performers: Taiko artist Kage and dance artist Ziyian Kwan. Through sound composition, live vocals and movement, Kage’s Itadakimasu explores how food intersects with ancestral teachings and community, and how this is being threatened by colonial and capitalist forces. Ziyian’s The Odd Volume similarly emerges in resistance to forces that assimilate, displace, and racialize, articulating through movement and storytelling, her immigrant experience as a first generation Chinese-Filipina. Volume Vulva Verve powerfully voices the importance of preserving cultural knowledge and inspiring healing within ourselves and our communities.

Bowl of Jasmine (May 26-28) is a program of 2 works choreographed by Juolin Lee and Sujit Vaidya. The artists come from distinctly different backgrounds, yet they are unified by a mutual fascination with exploring the tension between imagination and reality. This program inquires into the physicality of their fantasy worlds, exploring how cultural influences in the form of scent and taste permeate through their moving bodies.

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Artistic Statement, Ziyian Kwan: “ahmm was born of my desire to connect with kith and kin – at Dumb Instrument Dance’s cultural space Morrow, during Asian Heritage Month. My hope is that this first iteration of a festival, which came about as an impromptu incentive, will develop and evolve into future adventures. But in the here and now, it’s so exciting to dream something into being with an extraordinary group of artists and partners. Expect intimate sharings of poetry, movement, music, film, visual art and interactive offerings of rest and nourishment, made real by co-operative imagining and camaradarie. Through events that are at once resistance and celebration, ahmm is the embrace of Asian Canadian artists who from a space of community, sing their work to shore.”