SUM GALLERY

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.

MOTORBIKE/SUPERDYKE

SUM gallery
co-presented in partnership with Vancouver Queer Film Festival
Opening reception: Sat, Aug 13, 7 to 10pm
Installation runs Aug 16 to 20, 12 to 6pm. Daily drop-in zine workshops from 3 to 6pm.

MOTORBIKE/SUPERDYKE is a collaborative multimedia installation by Cheryl Hamilton and lisa g, based on lisa g’s diaries about coming out and sorting through queer stereotypes circa 2000. Illustrations, art prints, an animated film and a zine echo a time and place and reflect upon personal identity politics.

MOTORBIKE/SUPERDYKE animated film trailer

Cheryl Hamilton is a conceptual artist with a penchant for visual ingenuity. She imbues her artwork with a kineticism inspired by her education as an animator at Vancouver’s Emily Carr Institute. She enjoys the process of collaboration and experimentation and tries to remain flexible in approaching mediums preferring the concept to dictate the ingredients. Although Cheryl has been working as a large-scale sculptor (blown glass, stainless steel, cast bronze) she has continually returned to the medium of drawing and painting as it serves as the backbone of her art practice.

lisa g is an artist/filmmaker living on the unceded and stolen territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and Sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. They are interested in work that has historical reference, social relevance & where possible, humour. They work independently, with other artists and within communities. lisa g is a founding member of Vancouver’s Iris Film Collective, which promotes the creation and sharing of analog film and they are the producer/mentor of Our World which supports the creation of Indigenous self directed short films. lisa g’s work screens internationally and has won awards.

Artist Residency—Dion Smith-Dokkie

Jan 4 – Jan 31

SUM gallery activates the New Year with a new artist residency program featuring Vancouver-based West Moberly First Nations artist Dion Smith-Dokkie. Throughout the month of January, Dion will create new multimedia work and engage the community through free, artist-led drawing workshops and an open house. In groups of five, workshop participants will create collaborative charcoal drawings, with a focus on intuitive mark-making and an experimental approach to space and form. Register here to attend a workshop. Space is limited and proof of vaccination is required.

Workshop dates:

Dion Smith-Dokkie (he, they) is a painter and visual artist currently living in Vancouver on the unceded ancestral homelands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ. He is a recent graduate of the UBC MFA in Visual Arts program. Dion also holds degrees from the University of Victoria and Concordia University. His practice hones in on colour and light, skin, screens, clouds and skies, and interfaces of all sorts through the lens of painting, drawing, and video. He grew up in the Peace River region of British Columbia and Alberta and is a member of West Moberly First Nations.

Open house: Feb 3 & 4, 12 to 7pm

Over the course of January, artist-in-residence Smith-Dokkie created a series of pastel drawings. The works in this series, will soften these away – will these soften away represent a burgeoning inquiry into texture, touch, drawing, light and colour. Softness, delicateness, sensitivity were key processual principles. View these fabulous works and meet the artist behind the work by dropping in to our open houses Feb 3 & 4 from 12 to 7pm.

Artist statement:
This series of drawings took on a very different shape to the one I envisioned when I proposed this residency. Instead of an intermedia dialogue between drawing and video, the drawings asked that I come close, that I breathe in the pigments so that something could also blossom in me. I thought about Masao Okabe’s irradiated trees and Simon Hantaï’s étoilements: I folded, crushed, and creased the paper to introduce a topographical sense, bas and haut relief and to stimulate frottage, planar out-foldings—this allowed me to randomize, to miniaturize the pointillist open brushstroke and pixel. The drawings are studies in chromatic filaments, garden sites, woven colours, textures that morph.

Please note that vaccine passports and masks will be required to enter the gallery. If you plan on visiting the gallery after 6pm on open house dates, please contact the gallery at 604-200-6661 to gain access to the Sun Wah Centre.

Gathering of Wishes and 1000 Paper Butterflies

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.

From the Queer Arts Festival Workshop: Wed Aug. 4, 2021

Storytelling & Poetry Writing Workshop with jaye simpson

Starting Jan 30th at Mt Pleasant Community Centre

Presented by Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation Queer Arts Festival TGD2S Inclusion Committee

Hone your poetry, prose and essay skills with workshops facilitated by jaye simpson. These workshops strive to engage in the power of developing one’s voice and narrative while rejecting the assigned script we are given in society. While focusing on tone, rhythm and pace, jaye hopes to guide writers with prompts, editing exercises and practice readings. This series asks you to investigate the stories that inspire you and the people behind them while also asking what.

Jan 30th Week One: Introductions // Editing Tips, Tricks & Hacks // Poetry Prompt

Feb 13th Week Two: Poetry Prompt Feedback // Spoken Word & Voice // Spoken Word Prompt

Feb 27 Week Three: Practice Reading/Spoken Word Feedback // Prose & Personal Narrative, Prose Prompt

Cultivate Artist Circles

Cultivate presents Art with Auntie, a Queer Drop-In Art Circle

Alternating Wednesdays 4-5pm

Since we can’t gather in person, gather around Shane’s virtual table for sharing art, stories, knowledge and support. Just like at Auntie’s house, the best adventures come from being together. Bring your latest project, a doodle, beadwork, or anything else to work on while we chat. Maybe Auntie will share a story or teach you to make some tea. You’re invited to talk about your art making process, lead a short skills share, and just enjoy being together.

Community Agreements

Confidence: What’s Said Here Stays Here.

Sharing: What’s Learned Here Leaves Here.

Respect: Everyone gets an opportunity to speak without judgement and without disruption.

Learning: Listen More Than You Speak, and speak with care.

Accountability

Those individuals struggling to uphold the community agreements will be asked to leave the session and will be invited to a private discussion.

Registration process

Send a registration request to shane@queerartsfestival.com and introduce yourself. Zoom link will be emailed shortly before the session. Please do not share the link.

Glitter Technics

Glitter Technics is a 13 week workshop held every Wednesday from September 11th to December 4th, from 4pm to 8pm, with the exception of a special 5-hour workshop with Reel Youth on October 30th from 4pm to 9pm. All classes take place at The SUM Gallery in Chinatown, located at #425 268 Keefer Street. The workshop is free, with snacks and transit passes provided.

Produced in partnership with Pride in Art Society, Community Arts Council of Vancouver, and TELUS.

Glitter Technics is an experiential creative empowerment workshop series designed to shine the light on you and a story you want to develop and share. Participants will have the opportunity to discover and enhance new and existing artistic practices, tools and techniques as well as choose the creative medium(s) that will help them share their story with the greater public. Come join in the glitter of some of the cities most inspiring performing artists and facilitators who will guide and mentor participants to explore their artistic curiosity and self-expression, take creative risks and increase their self-esteem, confidence and leadership.

Led by Mutya Macatumpag (moo-cha) (maca-toom-pag), participants will work as a collective, creating community, culture, a healthy environment to gain new skills, encourage existing ones to a new level and produce meaningful work. Our aim is to foster solo and group collaboration and production, through exploration, support, fun and mentorship. We will be building up our technical skills in digital story telling, music, movement, theatre, writing, visual and performance art.

Free workshops on Technology in the Arts

Emerging Artists Program

May 4 and May 9, 2018

Join us at SUM for FREE workshops on Technology in the Arts!

Technology in the arts can provide us with incredible opportunities to take our creations to the next level. However, knowledge on how to use and install equipment can keep us from exploring and achieving the potential of our artistic visions. Workshops are FREE and available for all Queer and Allied Emerging Artists!

Technology in Performing Arts with Sammy Chien

Ever wondered… How does technology facilitate the way we create art? What are the dramaturgical perspectives on video projections?
How does the role of arts and technology implicate with our artistic expression and our spiritual health?

Friday May 4 from 3-5pm come and learn from cutting edge interdisciplinary media artist Sammy Chien, the official selected mentor for the audiovisual performance software Isadora from the creator of the software Mark Coniglio.

This workshop will focus on introducing audiovisual technologies and demonstrating its applications to inspire the participants’ creative possibilities working with sound, video and new media/technologies.

Intro to Media Art Installation with Bobbi Kozinuk

On Wednesday May 9 from 2-6pm, join media artist extraordinaire Bobbi Kozinuk at SUM gallery for an intro to Media Art Installation!

In this workshop you will learn about:
– Sources: DVD, media players, computers, looping and auto start, file types, compression, synchronization.
– Projectors: aspect ratio, image resolution, brightness, care and setup, orientation, zoom and throw.
– Signals and Cables: hdmi, dvi, VGA, video, sdi, wifi. Cable length.

You can come to one, the other or both workshops. No registration required.

PAID INTERNSHIPS OPPORTUNITY

The Queer Arts Festival is offering emerging artists a rare opportunity to receive an honorarium while working and learning alongside professional artists. Through a mentorship and training program, you will learn the skills necessary to work towards a career in the arts and technology. Please see the job descriptions for details on the available positions.

QAF Emerging Artist program works to equip you with new skills and experience through mentorship, to offer you the resources and techniques to engage new technologies as a means to further your career, develop leadership skills, and build the necessary abilities for further employment in arts and technology. These mentorship positions will provide you with introductory experiences in the arts as well as on-the-job training.

Previous experience or knowledge is not required.
Read the job descriptions below:
EA Job Description_ Assistant Stage Manager
EA Job Description_ Media Art Installation Technician

Application forms available at the workshops.

*ASL interpretation available upon request. Please contact us directly with any accessibility needs at info@prideinart.ca