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If you wandered past Robson Square on the evening of August 13th, you may have glanced down to the ice rink and been a little puzzled. There was some swing-dancing happening initially, but then as people filtered in, the swathes of blue light began to encompass more than your run-of-the-mill mingling. To celebrate the kick-off of the 27th annual Queer Film Festival, attendees were graced by the presence of fire breathers, circus performers, and acrobats. If you hung around, you also likely took in some characteristically incredible performances from Shanda Leer, Anna Propriette, and ManUp’s PonyBoy.
It was a celebration by cinephiles of all sorts for cinephiles of even more sorts, loudly and stylishly setting off what’s going to be ten beautifully crafted days of seventy films (read about Program Director Shana Myara’s excited approach to the lineup here).

Some of SAD Mag’s lovely and talented writers will be preparing reviews and interviewing the creators of some choice films from this years lineup. Here’s what we’re most excited for!

The Cult of JT LeRoy

“The infamous writer who sparked “the postmodern trial of the century,” JT LeRoy, a 15-year-old trans* sex worker, was hailed for writing heart wrenching novels. Chuck Palahniuk described JT as having the “authentic voice of someone who suffers.” Known for being deeply shy, JT LeRoy was encircled by a Warholian world of celebrities including Winona Ryder, Rosario Dawson, Natasha Lyonne, Sandra Bernhard, Gus Van Sant, Shirley Manson, Lou Reed and numerous writers and agents. But at the peak of JT’s 10-year rise came a rapid fall from grace. Was this the world’s largest literary scandal? Or a profound uncovering of our literary biases? Director Marjorie Sturm crafts a haunting, introspective documentary that questions artistic voice, freedom of speech and how far we will go to achieve our dreams.”

We’re excited to have an interview with director Marjorie Sturm to go along with the screening of JT LeRoy!

Bright Eyes, Queer Hearts

“This youth-full night of short films is just the tall order you’ve been looking for. We start this night by celebrating the young local filmmakers who won this year’s Rise Against Homophobia Youth Short Video Contest. Then we venture into an amazing international selection of shorts that delve into the awkward, the painful, and the silly moments of growing up queer. From first crushes in Mexico to dealing with friends – and enemies – in Denmark, to the perils of social media and nosy parents in Taiwan. “

Afterwards, the films were discussed by panelists Vi Read, Tahia Ahmed, and Jessie Anderson! The lineup of films to be shown include RISE AGAINST HOMOPHOBIA YOUTH SHORT VIDEO CONTEST WINNERS, and Love Intersections’ Regalia: Pride in Two Spirits from Canada; Carina, from Mexico by Sandra Reynoso; Big Time-My Doodled Diary by Sonali Gulati from India and the USA; CAGED (UITGESPROKEN) from the Netherlands by Lazlo and Dylan Tonk; and Penguins at the North Pole, by Stella Lin.

Girl at My Door

“This powerful film by writer-director July Jung presents a stunning reflection on immigration, rural life, addiction and abuse—and the heartbreak of finding no safe refuge in family or law. Young-Nam, an outsider with an unspoken scandal, is sent from Seoul to a small village to take over as police chief, and is soon drawn into the personal dramas of the locals. When her ex-lover arrives, Young-Nam’s defense of a girl in the town becomes suspect. A beautifully done, sometimes disturbing, and ultimately exquisite film, July Jung’s A Girl at My Door captures the fantasies and hopes of two people finding hard-won redemption.”

This film famously garnered a three-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival–don’t miss it!

Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party

“Stephen Cone (The Wise Kids) brings us another smart incisive film full of depth, guilt, pain, and peace. Traversing the common experience of growing up gay in a home where faith rules, Henry Gamble is turning 17 and his worlds of church, school, adult mentors, family, and youth group are colliding. When Logan (a quiet youth from his church group) arrives, Henry is pulled into the awkward longing and distancing that often comes with adolescent desire. A bold and complex image of the inner struggles of those who hold faith, this film is a sharp work with believable characters, excellent acting, and the beautiful reminder that “the trouble with growing up is that you are always becoming yourself.”

The Chambermaid

“A powerful adaptation of Markus Orths’ novel of the same name, The Chambermaid is a dream come true for every kinkster with a bent for complex portrayals of sex work, mental health and happy endings. This slow-burning drama offers up a make-you-wait-for-it depiction of a refreshingly weird duo of characters. Lynn’s highly regulated and mundane life as a cleaner at a hotel is transformed once she hires Chiara, a dominatrix sex worker who adds enough blast to her world to open her up and help her regain intimacy through kink. Starkness mixes with whimsy in this arthouse flick that amps up in the same way that love and recovery so often do.”

Liz in September

“Patricia Velasquez (Arrested Development, The L Word), also known as the first Latina lesbian supermodel, stars in this intimate love story as Liz, a party girl and heartbreaker who has a reputation for being irresponsible— and irrevocably seductive. She also has a secret. After she meets up with a group of friends for their annual celebration in the Caribbean, the mysterious Eva joins them and their lives become intertwined. With a lively cast including an ebullient group of friends, director Fina Torres brings us a meditation on the invisibility of death, the limits of life, and gaining what we need when we least expect it.Liz in September boldly reminds us that the best is yet to come.”

We’re going to have reviews of all of these films up in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

A theme of breaking, splitting, and rebuilding ran through Wednesday’s QSONG (Queer Songwriters of a New Generation) showcase at the Roundhouse Performance Centre in Yaletown. It was a gloomy and drizzly summer night, but the young songwriters performing that evening created a warm, intimate atmosphere. Constructing just this type of space is the goal of the QSONG workshop, now in its second year. Musicians and mentors Sarah Wheeler and Ellen Marple met with Queer and allied Vancouver youth every Friday for a nine week period, helping them to expand their musical skill set and gain confidence in the nerve-wracking art of sharing deeply personal compositions on stage. The result was Wednesday’s showcase of original work, comprised of collaborative pieces and solo songs. It was the collaborative numbers that really shone; the energy and camaraderie of the group was palatable. In contrast, breakups and destructive love were at the core of much of the solo music, experiences which so often drive people to make music. QSONG alumni Gaby Lamoureaux provided one of the best performances: singing and playing the ukulele, the 25-year-old performed a song about moving on from a past relationship, but peppered the sadness with enough upbeat moments to keep the audience feeling hopeful.

When the lights came up at end of the evening the audience wasn’t quite ready to leave. Most people milled around the foyer, taking in the art on display, before bursting the bubble and venturing back into the world. The Roundhouse Performance Centre provided an attractive and supportive space for the musicians to showcase their work. Judging by the poise of all the young performers, it won’t be the last time they enjoy such an opportunity.

Follow the Queer Arts Festival on Twitter or visit the festival website for updates about future events.

Faced with the pile of submissions for this year’s Vancouver Queer Film Festival, Director of Festival ProgrammingShana Myara had her work cut out for her. “The struggle of curating the festival is really when to stop,” she told SAD Mag in a recent phone interview, “We only have ten days!”

Myara’s work has paid off, however; with over 70 films from 21 countries included in the final bill, and themes ranging from transgender athletes to gay camboys to bearded ladies, the 27th VQFF promises to wow audiences with a seriously stacked international lineup. Throw in a handful of Q&A’s with visiting filmmakers, a series of free workshops, and three special galas, and you have the creative smorgasborg that is this year’s festival. Film fans, mark your calendars: August 13 to 23 is going to be a busy–and eclectic–ten days.

It’s this eclecticism, Myara believes, that sets the festival apart. “We see so much of the samey-same out there that individuality is really quite a strength,” she explains. “That’s what Queer film festivals are all about.” Instead of selecting films by theme, Myara selects them by quality, and only later organizes them into categories.

The categories or “spotlights” that emerged this year are Canadian queer films, DIY Gender, queer youth culture and queer films from Latin America. Among the festival highlights are: a showing of Cannes-award-winning Korean filmmaker July Jung’sA Girl at My Door(and accompanying Q&A with the artist, Aug 19); a tailor-made archival program, Still Not Over It: 70 Years of Queer Canadian Film(Aug 18);and an 87 minute collection of shorts–made entirely by youth, for youth–called Bright Eyes, Queer Hearts(Aug 18).

The transformative power of film is one reason Myara likes to keep the bill so diverse. “Film really has the power to help us change our worldviews–to experience a life in another way,” she says. “At VQFF, we’re really mindful of those intersectional stories that speak to life told from the margins–stories that have the potential to make you feel more accepting, rather than close-minded–stories that don’t necessarily have all the right answers, but ask the right questions.”

VQFF takes their mission out of the cinema and into the classroom with the Out in Schools program, run through Out on Screen. The program brings age-appropriate queer films to schools, using film as a “springboard for a discussion around acceptance and understanding.” By helping to create an accepting learning environment through film, Out in Schools hopes to prevent bullying, exclusion, and violence.

In a city that’s been called the gay-bashing capital of Canada, it’s easy to see why these discussions are so important. “Unfortunately violence against the community is a very real part of our history and our present,” Myara sighs. “But I often look at violence as having a rebound effect; violence against a few creates a feeling of solidarity in a community.” And community, she continues, is what VQFF is all about. “From the beginning it’s been very open-armed; everyone who wants to come is welcome.”

“It’s a really exceptional feeling to feel welcomed when you arrive somewhere,” Myara observes, and her smile is almost audible over the phone. “The festival, first and foremost, brings people together.”

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival runs from August 13 – 23. For showtimes and locations, visit the festival website.

In the moments before the event began, a digital image of a living space, like a cartoon combination of IKEA and the Sims, was projected on to the floor-to-ceiling screen at the back of the stage, a representation of the normativeness that would be shattered throughout the night.

The event was a pairing of emerging and professional artists. First, PROX:IMITY RE:MIX, a performance by a group of queer youth, aged 15-24, fresh off a two-week mentorship with MACHiNENOiSY, and second, Kinesis Dance performing Night, by Para Terezakis.

PROX:IMITY RE:MIX was an array of individual and ensemble pieces, ranging from free movement to choreographed dance, spoken word, performance art and monologue. The performers interacted with their images, which were recorded live and projected onto the screen behind them. The imagery was often colourful and created both concrete and abstract depictions of them. It was all underpinned by a rich and diverse soundscape.

PROX:IMITY RE:MIX was a synergy between imagery, physicality, sound and story. Namely, the personal stories of the youth: “My name is ______, I am ______ years old and my pronoun is ______”, was an echoing refrain throughout the performance.

It touched upon the rigidity of binaries, the process of coming out, victim blaming, the beauty of home and love, and the triumph of being your true self. It was the authenticity, the vulnerability and the strength of the youth that carried the show. Young people, telling their stories, sharing their truth, being brave.

Some youth were at the beginning of their artistic journeys, while others already had their wings and were flying. Together though, they had continuity, both working within their respective abilities and pushing their edges.

Night was a journey through the darkness, a ride through the peaks and valleys of the nocturne: excitement, chaos, lust and love, connection, shame, voyeurism and the collecting of one’s self and their things afterwards, at sunrise, to begin anew.

At its best the performance was compelling, moving and provocative, but at times also frenetic and flat. That said, it was mostly pop and fizz. The piece grappled with the sexual fluidity of roles, partners and gender, feelings of shame in desire, and disconnection from normative values of sex, beauty and attraction.

The narrative of the performance was driven by an eclectic mix of music switched, often abruptly, by different performers from a laptop sitting on a desk on stage. Stark changes in lighting and the use of each of the character’s possessions: clothing and other personal effects carried in a bag, punched through the movements and feeling of a night in many vignettes.

Its seams were left intentionally unfinished and showing, the fourth wall was broken, and the viewer, and the other dancers for that matter, was given free reign to gawk and stare at the creatures of the night, their movements communicating their intent and emotion with clarity. With red lips they embarked on a metamorphosis from dusk till dawn, the only remnants of which were a pair of red heels and a row of lipstick cases, standing on end.

When I first read the summary of Cosmophony, a collaboration between the Queer Arts Festival and the Powell Street Festival, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. After all, how is an auditory representation of space manifested? How does one describe space and the cosmos through music, much less through music played only on a piano by a single artist? Would it be an epic space theme a la Star Wars‘ opening credits? Or an ethereal and ominous soundtrack that captures the vast darkness that is our universe?

It turns out, it was much more than that. Pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa commissioned 11 Canadian composers to create this beautiful musical journey through our solar system. Each composer focused on a different planet or space entity. The result was that each planet sparked in its audience a different affect and atmosphere. However, through Iwaasa’s beautiful and skillful musicianship, each composition was tied to the next in a cohesive performance that felt perfectly natural. Iwaasa truly managed to do justice to each and every piece she played, holding the audience captivated for the full hour-long performance.

The performance took place in Firehall Arts Centre, a space with an intimate and communal atmosphere. The set was simple: Iwaasa at her piano, with a screen playing images of each planet as the backdrop. The audience’s full focus could be on the music being performed, with pieces by composers including Rodney Sharman, Marci Rabe, Alexander Pechenyuk, Jocelyn Morlock, Chris Kovarik, Jeffrey Ryan, Stefan Udell, and Jennifer Butler. The show opens with Denis Gougeon’s passionate Piano-Soleil. From the sun, we are taken through the planets, over epic Mercury and gentle Venus, over the Asteroid Belt described by Jordan Nobles’ Fragments, and over to Gliese 581c, a faraway planet that is one of the human race’s only shreds of hope for relocation once we burn through all of our own natural resources—a theme which composer Emily Doolittle depicts with great passion. The performance is not just a piano concert; it is a social commentary on the ways in which we abuse our own planet, as well as an exploration of not only the vast cosmos itself, but of the human race’s role in the solar system.

Through this journey, Cosmophony manages to encapsulate multiple themes: human awe at the vastness of space, the continued exploration of space, the mysteries of the cosmos, and the environmental havoc that we have wreaked upon our own planet. Whether you are a space buff, a classical music fan, a lover of community art, or a combination of the three, Iwaasa’s stellar performance and the beautiful collaboration of talent managed to create something that will speak to everyone.

Cosmophony was put together by the Queer Arts Festival and the Powell Street Festival. You can find Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa’s website here.

Party Tricks by Elliat Albrecht. Press play and begin.

He lit up like a used car lot. Like an amusement park. Like a chandelier shop. Like an exit sign. Like an incoming call. Like a homecoming crowd. Like a fifty year smoker. Like a birthday cake. We had one week.

Wednesday. He collected other people’s letters from thrift stores and kept them in boxes by his bed where he read them when he couldn’t sleep. His insomnia depended not at all on the earth’s rotation or what he ate, but entirely on the content of the news on the radio on the way home from work. Each time a broadcaster announced a tragedy without really hearing what they were saying, he sighed and one more tiny wrinkle appeared above his brow.

Monday. He liked to go for breakfast in the middle of the night. I looked at him across the table. He took a sip of water.
“My mother though,” he said, finally, “is an interesting story. She had me late in life and worked until she was old.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Mostly in restaurants, basement bars and at a factory outside of Detroit. That’s where she met my dad.” He didn’t offer more on the subject.
The table was chipped and sticky with syrup. I watched him fold and unfold his hands.
“What kind of factory?”
“They produced a certain type of drainage system used on pleasure yachts. Something for the
plumbing in the galley I think. It was all shipped to the coast.”
I told him that my grandparents had a sailboat that slowly circled a different Great Lake each summer.
“We grew up across the border from one another,” I said. “In different decades though, I guess.
Maybe that explains why we speak so similarly.”
“Do we?” he asked. “I hadn’t noticed. It seems like the only place where you hear regional accents anymore are cable talk shows.”

Saturday. I met him at a dinner party for the employees of a sleep clinic. The hosts were friends of my parents to whom I was introduced by e-mail before I left home that summer. He sat next to me in the dining room. He wore a white shirt and told me that nightmares account for six percent of dreams for those with normal vision, but twenty-five percent of the dreams of the blind. I dropped my fork on the floor and he passed me his. The generation gap closed when our hands touched. I told him the story of the Russian royals in hiding. He had a sister named Anastasia. Someone turned up dance music on the stereo down the hall. The guests wanted to stay up all night.

Tuesday. We lay on my bed flipping through a teen magazine talking about pop-feminism.
“The problems of Miley Cyrus pale in comparison to those of the women who make her clothes,” I said. He nodded and said he was dismayed that young people had already forgotten the revolution.
“Which revolution?” I asked dumbly. He looked over at me and launched into a tirade about the inevitable failure of inflated regimes. Something about Rome. Something about America. He performed his monologue on self destruction with good rhythm. I swear some of it rhymed.
Sometimes his anger was almost a sonnet. I zoned out.
When he finished, I told him that failure was the most fertile circumstance for possibility. Just after the moment of collapse, I pointed out, new realities are forced to life.
“There’s no organization in that,” he said.
“Does there have to be?”
“Always,” he said. “Humankind is a collection of impulses and habits and requires systems of arrangement to sustain.”
“William Blake said he must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s,” I answered. “Don’t you think life without risk is boring?”
“Tomb follows womb,” he said, and flipped the page. “It’s all the same in the end.”

Friday. He had an audacious hobby of writing personal ads for other people whom he thought were lonely. Sometimes the descriptions were grossly exaggerated, sometimes slightly undersold and sometimes right on the money. Once in a while, he’d open the paragraph with a revealing factoid or trait that would ultimately prove to be the most important part of a relationship.
“Jean gives up an average of forty-two minutes into an argument. She retreats into the bedroom where she would prefer to be left alone while you microwave your dinner. Early forties, loves to hike and try new things.”
He sent them to the local paper with photos attached of his beloved lonely hearts (and he really did do it out of love, he cared for them like kids alone at recess) taken at New Years Eve parties where a heavy flash startled their features but evened complexions in a flattering way.

Thursday. Once before I fell asleep, I left the door unlocked. He arrived with Pop Rocks, put them on his tongue and kissed me. I thought that was what fireworks tasted like. Sugary, blue.

Saturday. He was probably a genius but had a limited repertoire of moves. After he invited me to the amusement park, he forgot and took someone else. I wasn’t jealous, just mildly surprised by his laziness. I forgave it for the time that he told me his party trick was sitting at the piano at the end of the night, very drunk, a cigarette dangling from his mouth but I can’t remember the rest. Maybe something about sliding the keys. He pointed out that the figs in the backyard were ripe the last time I saw him. I sent him home with a box of four or five juicy fruits wrapped in paper. He told me later that they burst on the way home.

Figs courtesy of Elliat Albrecht. Music: We Move Lightly by Dustin O’Halloran.

“No. No. This––I have my money. Take my money. Take my goddamn money.”

They wouldn’t. A man came from the back room and stood beside the cashier; they both looked anxious as they tried to explain to the man with the money why. He crumpled a ten-dollar bill in his hand and then watched as it slowly opened in his palm.

“This ain’t fair. This ain’t no fuckin’ fair.” He whispered.

“We told you, we just can’t.”

A line of tears zigzagged down the man’s face before he staggered out of the store. The cashier and I shared no words as I paid for my beer.

For more, visit the Portraits of Brief Encounters website, or follow Cole Nowicki on Instagram or Twitter.

Anders Nilsen is the Minneapolis-based cartoonist responsible for publishing a universally adored series of mini comics called Big Questions that features tiny birds with really deep thoughts on life. His newest book, Poetry is Useless, is a collection of images and doodles from the last several years of his personal sketchbooks. There are no birds in Poetry is Useless, but there are a lot of big questions—about art, why we make art, how we value it, and what it means to be an artist. Marc Bell is a Canadian cartoonist and fine artist who is perhaps most well-known for blurring the line between fine art and doodling. After four years of working in the art world, he’s made what everyone (who knows anything) is calling a “triumphant” return to the world of graphic narrative by publishing Stroppy—a madcap adventure tale about a song writing contest gone wrong. Stroppy also has thoughts on poetry.

BELLMselfportrait — Marc Bell by Marc Bell, Courtesy of Marc Bell

Nilsen and Bell are at Lucky’s Comics in Vancouver on July 17th at 7:00 pm to launch their respective books. Shannon Tien from Sad Mag had the chance to talk to them about authenticity, capitalism, and self-help for writers, among other things. The best of their lengthy phone call is what follows:

Shannon Tien: Something that I think ties both of your books together is thinking about the process of creating art, or poetry specifically. How do your philosophies cross over or differ on this subject?

Anders Nilsen: Boy, that’s a tough one.

ST: It’s a heavy question to start with. I’m sorry.

AN: [laughing] I don’t know if I could do a capsule description of Marc’s philosophy. What do you think Marc?

Marc Bell: Well we made our books independently, but somehow they both ended up referencing poetry.

AN: That’s true.

MB: We did a tour together a few years ago so this is like a reunion tour…I don’t know how to answer that question either [laughing].

AN: I mean I think we both have a little off-the-cuff playfulness in our work. And probably a little—I don’t know how to put this—a little snottiness or something?

MB: Yeah we’re both sarcastic when we reference poetry.

I like writing poetry if I know it doesn’t have to be good. So for example I wrote Clancy the Poet’s poetry and that was super fun because I could do whatever I wanted and I didn’t have to worry if it was good or not. I could write reams and reams of Clancy’s poetry.

ST: But I love Clancy’s poetry!

MB: Right? It’s pretty good, in it’s way.

AN: I think it’s actually extremely deep.

But I think we’re both artists and we’ve both planted ourselves in that existence, but we’re both a little sceptical and like to make fun of ourselves…and the potential for being pretentious.

MB: Yeah and then I can’t exactly knock poetry so much because I do all these drawings and they have random text in them. They’re sort of poetry. Like my stuff is not that far from poetry really.

AN: Yeah, so I think we’re both sort of making fun of the thing we’re also actually doing.

MB: [laughing] Yeah, you got it.

AN: I actually sort of think of my book as my poetry collection, if there is such a thing, you know, making comics.

STROPPY_pg28 — Clancy Recites a Poem from Stroppy by Marc Bell

ST: Ok. I guess I was thinking that Clancy, he’s a poet, and all his poetry ends up doing for him is…

MB: He’s sort of co-opted by the Schnauzers.

ST: Right. So it’s like the opposite of the idea that poetry can save you.

MB: He was against the song contest idea. He was against all of it. But I don’t want to ruin the end! There’s a twist to the story.

AN: Basically, poetry is a tool of the oppressor and we’re both in revolutionary mode against the aggressor. Right Marc?

MB: That’s it, exactly.

AN: Capitalism.

MB: Society!

Refer to Clancy’s poem called “Society”.

ST: Okay so this is more a question for Anders, but your book is fragments of your old sketchbooks. What ties the fragments together?

AN: Really the only thing that ties the fragments together is the fact that they all were in my sketchbooks. They were all just things that either kind of happened or ideas I had that were worth putting down but not worth turning into an actual book.

POETRY_37 — Poetry is Useless by Anders Nilsen

ST: And how many years back does it stretch?

AN: I think the oldest pieces in the book are probably from 2008. There are 22 or 24 books. There’s a funny thing about sketchbook collections because you know that they’re sort of bullshit a little. You know the artist is editing a little and not showing you the really crappy pages, which I’m not showing you either. So each of those notebooks, there’s maybe 6, 7, 8, or maybe 10 pages from each of them.

MB: We did a couple crappy pages in one of them.

AN: Yeah last time we went on tour together we made some crappy pages together and I didn’t show those. We promise to be better on this tour.

ST: Speaking of editing, what’s the point of leaving your editorial marks in the published version of your sketchbook?

AN: I try to maintain readability. So if there’s so much crossing out that it feels like it’s going to make it hard for the reader to understand what I’m writing, then I clean it up a little with Photoshop. But in general, it is my sketchbook so part of what may be appealing about it is the fact that it’s a record of me kind of thinking out loud, on the page. So the mistakes are an important part of that.

Also, part of that work is me responding to my own process. So as I’m doing a drawing and then it turns to shit, I sort of have this idea that I want to still turn that page into an interesting page if I can. So if it goes in a weird direction, I want to try to work within the stakes of those unexpected failures.

ST: One of your stick figures in the book asks how to maintain authenticity after the death of the author. Does this sketchbook have anything to do with that question?

AN: [laughing] Ah, you’re probably calling me out for not being as smart as I pretend to be.

POETRY_12 — Poetry is Useless by Anders Nilsen

ST: But it’s a good thing to think about.

AN: I mean, I sort of don’t believe in authenticity and, you know, the sketchbook has a sort of fake authenticity, as I was saying…you always wonder what’s getting edited out and you’re always getting this sort of idealized view of the artist’s supposed candid moments, which is partly why I’m showing the whole spread of the sketchbook, to show that I’m not picking and choosing the little bits, but the truth is I am. I am not showing the crappy pages. It is work for a finished book. So yeah I think authenticity is highly overrated.

ST: What gave you the idea to draw the back of people’s heads for their portraits? Are they people you know?

AN: Some of them are people I know, but a lot of times when I’m in an audience, like at a poetry reading [laughing], or other events with live speakers, I just want something for my eyes and my hands to do, so I’m drawing them. And also when I’m in public, I don’t always want people to notice, so it’s easier if they’re turned away from me a little bit. I guess I’m a little bit of a coward.

MB: A poet and a coward.

AN: All poets are cowards.

It’s sort of funny. People’s hairdos are really fascinating to draw, as are ears.

ST: I think because you can’t look at the back of your own head, it’s like the most vulnerable part of your appearance.

AN: Yeah sure. That’s a nice idea.

ST: So if poetry is dead, comics are…

AN: Um…stupid?

Actually comics are fucking awesome.

ST: What would you say Marc?

MB: STUPID!

ST: How was the transition moving back to narrative, Marc, after working in the art world for a while?

MB: It was difficult. I’ve mentioned this in a few interviews I think, but I was kind of scared and I started reading self-help books. The equivalent of a writer’s self-help, or if someone wants to get into the film or TV industry, this is the equivalent of self-help books, like books about writing screenplays. They sort of helped, I think.

ST: Do you mind me asking which ones?

MB: I wish I could remember the titles. One I looked at, it was very basic. It was just about the 20 different kinds of stories people tell.

AN: Which number is Stroppy?

MB: Oh man. I don’t even know if Stroppy…

AN: Maybe it’s 22.

MB: Maybe it’s 23. I made a new form of story for Stroppy.

AN: By the way my new graphic novel is going to be number 16, so…

ST: Oh yeah? Is this book called STORY? Because I feel like I was reading the exact same book earlier this year when I was trying to write a novel.

MB: That could be it. Was it an orange book?

AN: Marc doesn’t care about titles. He only remembers the colours of books.

MB: Not interested in titles!

ST: No, mine was purple.

MB: Maybe it was a different edition! They were like the orange one didn’t sell so let’s throw purple on there. People LOVE purple.

Did it help you with your novel?

ST: No, not really.

MB: Well I actually wanted to try and find a formula to follow, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to do that.

AN: I’m trying to find a formula too. And I was thinking of inserting one of Hans Christen Andersen’s tales into my new graphic novel.

ST: Oh yeah! That would be great. He’s a weirdo. So the formula didn’t work out for you Marc. Did any other self-help books help you with building narrative?

MB: Oh no. There was one I was supposed to read…

AN: The Bible?

MB: [laughing] No. I never got around to reading the one I was supposed to read. I just started.

ST: Well, I think it turned out well. I like Stroppy.

MB: Thank you!

This interview has been edited and condensed.

Nancy Lee and Kiran Bhumber are the creative brains behind Pendula, an interactive art installation that uses the movement of swings to create music and projections, which premiered at Vancouver’s 2015 Jazz Festival. Nancy, the swing set builder, is a VJ, filmmaker and new media artist. Kiran, the music programmer, is a composer and performer whose artistic interests lay at the intersection of technology and music. Below, Sad Mag’s Shannon Tien talks to the duo about agency in art, teamwork, and the community value of swing sets.

Pendula2 — Still from Pendula by Nancy Lee and Kiran Bhumber

Shannon Tien: Tell me about Pendula.

Nancy Lee: Pendula is a multimedia, audio-visual, interactive installation. We use both hardware and software to take the swinging motion and turn them into audio or visual parameters, which means their effects that can be seen and heard during our installation. Using swing sets.

ST: How did this idea come together? What was the inspiration behind it?

NL: I started building outdoor swing sets as a public interactive installation piece. And then I did an event where I installed 8 swing sets indoors during an electronic music night that I organized. And there I met Kiran for the first time–Kiran was there swinging on the swings. And at that time she thought, “Hey, maybe we could make this swing into an interactive piece.” I’d also had projections installed. At that time it wasn’t an interactive piece, I just had projections over the swing area.

And then we later met again at New Forms festival working as production assistant volunteers. And that’s when we had time to sit down and talk about the project and our vision for it. The swing set I had at the event wasn’t my full vision that I had for it in my mind. I wanted the projections to reflect the social interactions that happened within the swinging area.

Kiran Bhumber: Having seen the swings at Nancy’s party, not interactive, I was very inspired by the idea of making the visuals interactive and also adding audio elements [and a] musical performance element, which was amalgamated into the installation at Jazz Fest. We had a musical performance at the top of every hour where I played clarinet and we had a cellist and I programmed the swings to be an actual instrument and act as an effects pedal. We had the swings changing the sounds of these acoustic instruments.

Pendula4 — Still from Pendula by Nancy Lee and Kiran Bhumber

ST: What was the timeline for this project to come to total fruition?

NL: About 8 months on and off.

ST: Can you tell me about the experience of performing it at Jazz Fest? Was anyone allowed to go in and swing?

NL: Yeah, after every performance, we invited people to come use the swing sets. And it was interesting, during the performance, because I’m playing the swings, it was interesting to see people’s facial expressions, how they reacted to the piece. You could see their “aha!” moments when they figured out what the swings were actually doing. I enjoyed seeing that moment.

ST: And how did you start working with swings? I’m just wondering because there used to be a public installation by my bus stop in Montreal where swings played different musical tones.

NL: Oh yeah I’ve heard of that! I started working with swings because I like climbing trees and I like building things out doors. Swings are kind of an easy thing to build. You just need rope. And I was dumpster diving and salvaging construction wood that I would use for swing seats. It costs very little to build a swing and the kind of return you get for the community or user is so much greater than the financial cost of building it. It is a really great investment for the community to build swing sets. You generate so much joy from it.

Usually we’re used to art installations being behind glass or a “do not touch area”. There’s a very definitive boundary between the observer and the art piece. And with this swing set, people do come up to us and ask, “Are we allowed to touch it?” But when people can play on the swing set they kind of become the piece. And some of the people who were using the swing sets, they kind of understood that, you know, “I’m becoming a part of the installation.”

KB: And also the addition of individuals on each swing. The piece is going to be different depending how many people are on the swings. So, the social adaptation and amalgamation of their swinging motion to create more aspects of the piece.

NL: We have three swing sets, so they’re kind of a three-piece ensemble. And [the people] all play the swings in a different way so the collective audio-visual output is different every single time.

ST: Did anybody get really into it at Jazz Fest?

NL: I think at the Jazz Fest, because of the setting, people were into figuring out the swings. People tested out different things. I think with public art installations, people are still pretty shy. People were more into figuring out how it worked than playing it as an instrument.

Pendula1 — Still from Pendula by Nancy Lee and Kiran Bhumber

ST: Is this the first time you’ve set this piece up?

NL: It’s the first time that we’ve done the three swing sets with the audio and visual.

KB: It’s been challenging incorporating the audio into a space that will allow it. So there’s no sound bleed. That’s an issue we had with Jazz Fest as well. The previous installs have been just visual because of that.

ST: How did you overcome that challenge at Jazz Fest?

KB: We got bigger speakers.
ST: Have you two collaborated before?

NL: This is our first collaboration together, but this is just the beginning of something. We plan to do more interactive musical pieces and performance pieces as well. We have so many ideas in our head that we would definitely like to explore in the future.

ST: Do you have any upcoming events?

KB: I just had my upcoming event today actually. I curated a show for Jazz Fest that was all based on interactive works. So technology and music. But at this moment Nancy and I are going to Kamploops in a couple days to start working on a new project. It’s kind of more vague now. We’re just going to check out the site.

NL: It’ll also be interactive, but more on the exhibition side of things, rather than a performance.

Watch: Pendula by Nancy Lee and Kiran Bumber

Pendula was on exhibition in Vancouver June 20 and 21st as a part of the Vancouver Jazz Festival. Visit www.swingwithpendula.com for further information on the Pendula Exhibit, and www.coastaljazz.ca for more information on the festival.

This interview has been edited and condensed. Thank you to Jelissa at Classics Agency.

Cynara Geissler is a triple threat: a pioneer of the fat-fashion blogging scene, an accomplished author and speaker, and a kick-ass cat mom. She also has an impressive collection of feline-adorned apparel (and her darling feline, Autumn, sports an anthropomorphic bowtie). Having recently given a talk at the local launch for the essay collection Women in Clothes, Geissler was the perfect person to converse with about the wonders of felines and femininity and what it means to combine those two elements in apparel.

Megan Jenkins: Hey! Let’s talk a bit about your history in fashion blogging.

Cynara Geissler: Well I started posting outfits of the day in a LiveJournal community called Fatshionista, and it was exclusively about fat people finding fashion. There’s also a Flickr group called Wardrobe Remix, where people post their street style—that inspired me. It was great, because it was people from all over the world, people of all different races, creeds, and financial backgrounds. I was always sort of interested in fashion as a community because you’re inspired by other people around you and your style evolves because you’re pushing yourself. I was never really an individual style blogger for that reason, I prefer to be a part of collective groups, because I see it as sort of an artistic endeavour.

MJ: Could you tell me a bit about your work with Women in Clothes, and other projects that you’re involved in right now?

CG: I’m not actually in the book—which is funny, people just assume I’m in the book—but they invited me to come and just give a talk. So I gave a talk on something that I call “Toddler-Grandma Style.” It’s basically just about how toddlers and grandmas in society are the least viewed through the male gaze; they’re not considered sexy. There’s an episode of Glee where Kurt says, “She manages to dress like a toddler and a grandma simultaneously,” and that’s like, the ultimate insult, right? Because she doesn’t know how to sex herself up for a man, or how to be desirable. So in my talk I said that I think more people should adopt this way of dressing, because we all have these weird internalized rules that I think are mostly about dressing for the male gaze. And I think that when you start dressing outside of that, you just start to have way more fun. People would always say to me, “You can pull that off,” and it would leave me thinking, “Well no, I don’t have a VIP pass or something that allows me to do it. I just do it.”

[I also] just sort of encouraged people to wear a million brooches, or wear more than one print at a time—you don’t always have to be wearing a beige suit. That’s apparently what adult women are supposed to be wearing to be taken seriously.

And the thing about patriarchy is that you’ll never be taken seriously. It’s kind of a loser’s game. There’s this idea that if you’re close to desirable, there’s more to lose, or something like that, but the fact is that there’s always going to be people that will ignore you because you’re a woman. So you might as well dress for yourself, and dress for joy and have fun.

I’m also guest editing the Culture issue of [local magazine] Poetry is Dead, so that’s coming up.

MJ: Would you say that there’s been a rise in popularity of cat apparel and related items that correlates with the influx of YouTube videos?

CG: Yeah definitely, I think the advent of Lolcats especially is tied into the popularity of cat-printed items. It’s great for me, because it used to be hard to source really zany cat prints. I think we’re definitely in a boom for cat clothes, like with laser cats, Keyboard Cat . . . We’ve got a lot of high- powered cats now. Nyan cat, and of course Grumpy Cat, Lil’ Bub. I think it used to be like, Garfield, instead of generic cat prints. I remember there being cats on stuff but it was mostly cartoons, it was not this idea of wearing a realistic cat, which I think was really connected to spinsters. I actually just read an article on how cat imagery was used for suffragettes in Britain, around first wave feminism. Men would compare women to cats to try to infantilize them. So it’s like the existence of cat memorabilia could be found in these little pockets, but now it’s reached critical mass.

I think it could be the tools we have at our disposal now—it’s much easier to take photos, and to circulate them, and at the end of the day, cats are funny, and warm, and they do dumb stuff and try to fit in really small boxes. When I was growing up, I’d never have known about Maru, in Japan, but now we get to enjoy the circulation of images and videos from all over the world.

MJ: Do you think that the cat lady image has been reclaimed?

CG: I do, actually. I think the whole cat image is that you’re supposed to be like a sex kitten, which of course is fine to adopt if you so choose, but then if you’re not a cute cat, you’re a weird cat spinster lady. Like from The Simpsons.

I think Taylor Swift and her kitten Olivia Benson kind of signals a young, cool cat lady and there’s no longer this automatic association with spinsterhood. Now I think we can all sort of joke about it, whereas a few years ago you might have been hesitant to be associated with that at all, at the risk of your dating prospects, you know?

But I don’t think it’s just women who enjoy cat-printed items either now, like Urban Outfitters has put out cat-printed ties and button-ups [for men], so that makes me think that the image is sort of crossing gender lines too. I do think that for a really long time cats were associated with domesticity, and were feminized, while men would go out hunting with their cool hunting dogs. It’s funny to consider how cats have shifted culturally. I think they’re semiotically slippery. Like you have Hemingway Cats, which are associated with masculinity, because Ernest Hemingway had a bunch.

MJ: Is there solidarity in being a cat lady?

CG: Yeah, I think so! Spinsterhood has more pride associated with it now—obviously it comes from a very antiquated, patriarchal idea that if a woman is not married by the age of 22, she’ll just be a burden to her family for the rest of her life. But we’re maybe shifting away from thinking of women as being most valuable when they’re connected to a man, so I think there’s a bit of subversion in the cat lady idea. We’re supposed to feel sorry for the cat lady, but I think that we’ve now accepted that it’s better to be happy, and single, and living as a lone woman than just settling for a crappy dude. Pet love feels very unconditional and uncomplicated in a way that trying to be with a significant other sometimes isn’t.

There’s a reason Swift is sticking with Olivia Benson, just making music and joking about being a man-eater. It’s pretty great. I’m happy if she’s the new poster girl for being a cat lady. I hope that it represents the sort of refusal to settle for a crappy guy just so that you can feel secure or feel bolstered by male approval. I think we all still sort of seek that validation—I think sometimes you’ll appreciate it more when a man compliments you rather than a woman, which shouldn’t be the case. In being a good cat lady then, I think you just have to care more when a cat compliments you. That’s worth way more.

You can follow Cynara’s general bad-assery on her twitter account.

For the full article (and many more fabulous, feline-focused reads), pick up a copy of The Cat Issue (Issue 18), in stores now at participating locations. Sad Mag subscriptions and back issues are also available through our website. This interview has been condensed and edited.

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