The boardroom at the parks department was hot, humid, and full of media and piles of us skateboarders who were filling the seats and every available space on the floor. We were waiting to speak in opposition of an asinine motion concerning the removal of a well-loved and utilized skatepark. But first there was another item on the docket—the proposed zipline at Queen Elizabeth park.
Yes, a zipline. Because it’s always best to have a quick exit readily available at popular tourists spots for when your relatives come to visit and your grandpa starts talking about “all of the damn Filipinos that are moving to town” again. The commission asked you general questions about your company’s proposal like “What does the zipline’s revenue model look like?” and “What will be the environmental impact?” before lobbing you a softball. An easy homer. “Is it true that 1/10 people who ride the zipline are squealers?” Admittedly it was a strangely worded question but not as strange as your answer.
“I’m not sure about that statistic, I mean, this isn’t an episode of Deliverance.”
There were two fucked up things about your response. First, Deliverance was a movie starring a sans-mustache Burt Reynolds, not an episodic. Second, you just made a wildly tangential reference to one of the most infamous rape scenes in cinematic history at a public and televised Parks Board meeting. A few of us gasped. The board voted almost unanimously in favour of the zipline.
The 5th annual Verses Festival is not a mere celebration of words, but a celebration of voices and viewpoints from poets across Canada. Since undergoing rebranding three years ago, the festival continues to get bigger and better each year. The recent transition has led to a more diversified festival lineup that includes a wealth of spoken word performances, slam poetry events, and poetry workshops spread throughout Vancouver for first timers and seasoned poets alike.
New to the event this year is a curated exhibit of visual poetry entitled That One Thing You Said, a collaboration with local poetry magazine Poetry Is Dead. Tucked away inside a Latin American restaurant along Commercial Drive, the quaint gallery features works by five Canadian visual poets: Jordan Abel, Dina Del Bucchia, Lindsay Cahill, Helen Hajnoczky, and Eric Schmaltz.
The exhibit blurs the lines between visual art and poetry while taking a closer look at how the role of language has shaped each poet’s worldview and relationships on an interpersonal, social and global level. Some pieces are illegible and undecipherable to the viewer, hinting at the transformative power of language as a tool for communication, or rather, the lack thereof. And isn’t this what poetry, at its core, really achieves? This art form is unique in that it can speak to readers without requiring them to fully understand the context of its symbolic reference points.
At the heart of the festival is the Hullabaloo series, a competitive youth slam that kickstarts the season. Fueled by spirited energy and infectious enthusiasm, aspiring teams engage in friendly interschool competition to see whose school has the best poetic chops and is most deserving of the coveted shark trophy.
According to Hullabaloo Events Coordinator and local Vancouver poet RC Weslowski, it is important for today’s youth to get involved in the poetry scene because these events create situations where young people are validated and listened to in a way that goes beyond being seen as “target markets” for corporations. One of the most pleasant surprises for Weslowski is seeing youth poets surprise themselves with the power of their own words—realizing that what they have to say resonates with others, that their work can connect people on a larger scale.
Get a sneak peek of this year’s festival line up at the Hulla-Verses Remixer opening gala this April 26 at 7:30 pm at the York Theatre.
The Verses Festival of Words runs from April 23 – May 3, 2015. For more information and a complete schedule of events, visit the festival website.
Sister Spit began in 1997 as a lesbian-feminist spoken word and performance art collective founded by Michelle Tea and Sini Anderson. Since then, Sister Spit has toured North America’s theatres, universities, and festivals, performing at the Casto Street Fair, Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and San Francisco’s LadyFest. Today, the legacy continues with Sister Spit: The Next Generation, a no longer exclusively female continuation of the original collective. Renowned writers and poets hit Vancouver’s Wise Hall on April 14 as part of Sister Spit’s 2015 North America tour.
Sister Spit North America Tour
Hosts Esther Tung and April Alayon introduced Sister Spit and ran through the preliminaries of the night before passing the mic on to Virgie Tovar. Virgie, ‘a hot fat Latina femme’ writer and activist, M.C.’d the show and broke up the string of poetry with engaging, hilarious and quirky personal stories. An excellent story teller is rare to find, and she has the talent to unearth something sparkling and extraordinary in everyday life situations. Poets Myriam Gurba, Mica Signourney and Tom Cho surprised the audience with the diversity of their styles and their dedication to performance. Each artist was honest and unabashed, able to express their uninhibited thoughts through performance and movement. Sister Spit established a strong sense of community throughout the night; the audience was comprised mostly of friends, family and Commercial Drive locals, and all bathrooms were gender neutral.
The content of the program was generally amazing and, most often, hilarious. Poets’ use of voice, tone, volume, accents, facial expressions, and gestures added so much to their words; it was a completely different experience to watch, rather than read, their work. This is why Sister Spit is so brilliant; it is obvious that these artists belong on stage, sharing what they love and hate and think about the world. Their performances were inspiring, empowering, and educational, wrought with humour and strong opinion.
The next time Sister Spit rolls into Vancouver, I’d like to be there, because I know that this brilliant collective will continue evolving, creating, and finding original ways to express itself to whomever they encounter along the road.
This month, the annual Capture Photography Festival in Vancouver welcomed exhibitions to galleries across the city. The festival focuses on celebrating local and international photography and lens-based art, making it a great way to get acquainted with Vancouver-based art galleries and artists.
The Hadden Park Map Exchange
On Friday, I attended the opening reception at Access Gallery for their exhibition Field Studies: Exercises in a Living Landscape. Walking into the gallery space, I was immediately confronted with a dozen maps of Hadden Park, a local park at the north end of Kitsilano Beach. The series of unconventional maps were produced by specialized practitioners and community members as part of the Hadden Park Map Exchange, a project orchestrated by local artists Rebecca Bayer and Laura Kozak. In this “field study,” each practitioner used the same template to organize the park according to his or her own background. Each map highlighted different aspects of the park, ranging from an exploration of the sensory experience of walking through it to a tally of electrosmog emissions in the area. By using identical templates for each map, the artists called attention to the subjectivity of individual interpretation. The collection successfully documented the inventive ways in which our everyday landscape can be experienced and imagined.
The Act of Constructing a Telecommuning Object by Emilio Sepulveda
The next wall housed a video installation by Eden Veaudry, a multi-disciplinary artist based in Vancouver. I watched as the artist’s hands wove together still photographs and tapestries on screen. Next to Veaudry’s work were beautiful weather kites by Emiliano Sepulveda, another Vancouver-based artist originally hailing from Mexico City. His works emphasized the way in which photography operates, documenting everyday landscapes through the interplay of light and colour. Both Veaudry and Sepulveda effectively used the gallery space to create a landscape of their own, allowing viewers to immerse themselves in their own perceptions of the works. Much like the Hadden Park maps, the installations encouraged viewers to develop unique interpretations and perspectives. The eye, these artists remind us, is just another lens with which to “capture” the environment.
Field Studies: Exercises in a Living Landscape takes place at the Access Gallery until May 23rd. The related Hadden Park Open Field Mapping event will take place on May 9th, followed by and an artist talk on May 23rd.
Capture Photography Festival runs until April 29th. For upcoming events and current exhibitions, visit the festival website.
The 2011 Canadian Federal Election Leaders Debate was by no means scintillating television. Jack Layton sprayed zingers, Michael Ignatieff made strained attempts at showing off his erudition, and Stephen Harper, for some reason I couldn’t figure out, adopted the manner of a particularly patient kindergarten teacher, speaking very slowly and avoiding any words that were liable to trouble an undecided Canadian voter, such as “climate change,” “Coast Guard closures,” or “oil spill.” He sopped up the other leaders’ barbs with a wide and creepy smile. I remember thinking it was impossible he had so little to say about, well, anything. You shouldn’t be able to win a debate while revealing nothing of your character, personality, or even basic opinions, right? Harper went on to win his first majority Government, of course. And everything in Canada has been fantastic ever since.
The uproarious recent comedy Proud, written by Michael Healey and playing at Strathcona’s Firehall Arts Centre until April 25, reimagines the Prime Minister who (as a particularly inspired piece of invective has it) seems like “a bag of mashed potatoes in a suit.” Set in an even more dystopic Canada than the one we currently inhabit, the Conservatives extend their landslide to Quebec, winning ridings with placeholder candidates who entered the race thinking they had no chance of winning. The play opens with the Prime Minister of Canada (Andrew Wheeler) directly addressing the audience while congratulating all his rookie MPs and lecturing them about discipline, just so the audience could discover for themselves what it feels like to be condescended to by Harper in person. After the opening monologue, the PM sits with his aide (Craig Erickson, amusing in twinkling sycophancy) and plans out Parliament seating arrangements—namely, how to get Conservative MPs who had wronged him in the past out of his line of eyesight. Into this den of propriety walks Jisabella Lyth (Emmelia Gordon), a newly minted young Quebec MP, wondering whether anyone could lend her a condom so that she can get it on with Evan Solomon (not a cameo performance, sadly). In the character of Lyth, Proud locates the perfect foil for our Prime Minister: a normal human woman.
Lyth becomes the PM’s ally, sometimes adversary, and sharp debating partner. She is a single mother and bar manager with no personal or emotional connection to politics. As she takes part in the PM’s scheme to distract the public from his true goals by tabling a no-hope anti-abortion bill (she is pro-choice and mentions how misleading the term “pro-life” is), she realizes that politics can be great fun if you are willing to abandon any real conviction. Healey’s script is wise and cynical about how people form their beliefs, positing that citizens just want to rant about what they oppose and find parties that hate the same things they do. The dialogue is consistently hilarious (characters tell each other to “pretend sex is like the United Nations: meaningless”), knowing, and chock full of quality CanCon jokes. I loved Lyth’s natural way with profanity, telling the Prime Minister “I’m gonna be fucked for names for a while,” though the script may over-rely on Stephen Harper dropping F-bombs.
Proud couldn’t work without fully committed lead performances, and both are fantastic. Emmelia Gordon is a force of fucking nature (I think that’s what her character would say), getting maximum laughs from each line reading. She has excellent timing with the difficult dialogue and her glee in achieving power is infectious. Andrew Wheeler’s Harper impression is uncanny, but the much more challenging task he accomplishes is to humanize the Prime Minister. He moves past the officious automaton of the opening scenes and reveals a man whose biggest problem is that he can’t let the public see his large vision for Canada. He is caring, pragmatic, and (horribly, horribly) sexy. I will never see Stephen Harper’s cardigan in the same way after having seen it ripped off in passion, no matter how much I may want to.
The play’s tone shifts between battle of ideas and sex farce, sometimes unsuccessfully, and I found the ending, which gestures at the next generation of Canadian politicians, to be incoherent. The script’s highlight is a bravura monologue in which the PM lists all the many things he only pretends to care about (Israel, the long gun registry, arts funding), naming and slaying every sacred cow of Canadian outrage from either side of the House of Commons. The PM only pursues these side issues so that he can give Canada “an appropriately-sized government,” an ideally mundane dream. Proud‘s conspiracy theory is that the people who are in power are secretly plotting to make the country much better, that when you get to know the man behind the curtain, he’s actually really swell.
It’s very comforting to think that our rulers only want what’s best for us, but (in my opinion and experience) it’s not true. So if you only leave your house once this year, for God and country’s sake, please use that trip to vote in 2015’s Federal Election (in October, unless chicanery occurs). But if you do happen to venture out more than once, go see Proud. You’ll have a fun time.
Proud will be playing at the Firehall Arts Centre April 7 – 25, 2015.
Info and tickets found here.
Hot art, fierce leotards and diva beats meet community activism in Flawless: A Beyoncé Inspired Art Show and Fundraiser taking place April 18 at Studio East. Flawless is one of a series of celebrity-themed art shows aimed at promoting creative accessibility and inclusivity. Local and international artists from all walks of life submitted paintings, short stories, drag, mixed media, video, drawing, bedazzling, dancing and sculpture to the show. Submissions of any size, medium, or skill level were considered, as long as content related to pop goddess Beyoncé.
But Flawless is more than a celebration of Ms. Knowles’ beauty and abilities; two of it’s main aims are to raise funds for the Positive Women’s Network, Canada’s longest-running HIV organization for women, and to support artists. All proceeds from ticket sales will go directly to the PNV, and featured artists will keep 100% of their commissions.
Sad Mag sat down with Christina Chant, the bubbly mastermind behind Saturday’s bootylicious event, to chat art, nursing and, of course, Beyoncé.
Sad Mag: Why did you first start doing art shows?
Christina Chant: It’s been almost four years, which is crazy to me. In the summer of 2011, my best friend and I—it was our third time going to Burning Man—wanted to plan something fun for a theme camp. A friend had joked about putting on a “Steven Seagallery”: an art gallery dedicated to Steven Seagal. We asked him for permission to use the idea and he said, “You do it, go for it. Just make sure it’s great.”
So we put on a couple art parties on at our house with friends who were going to Burning Man, just to come together and make art. When I came home [from the festival], I had all this art left over. I have friends who are artists and I asked one of them whether she any idea of galleries that would be interested in hosting this. She said, “Yes,” and I said, “That’s hilarious,” and laughed for, like, half an hour. She helped me put on our first gallery, which was at the Toast Collective in October of 2011. We had a great turnout and also made some money. We used that for the next show, “Bill You Murray Me,” which was huge. [From there], it just started rolling.
Untitled by Carl Ostberg
SM: What was the initial reaction to the shows?
CC: The best part was that lots of people wanted to purchase paintings, and lots of people were just really nice about wanting to be a part of it. We had a lot of first-time submitters, who said, “It’s amazing that you put this on, because it’s less pretentious, and I can actually participate.” [It’s true:] as long as it’s not racist, sexist, misogynistic stuff, we’ll put it in the show. It could be stick people and we wouldn’t care.
SM: I know you also work in nursing. Has your profession helped or hindered your involvement in the art shows?
CC: Well, [as a nurse] you have to be really organized; you’re prioritizing for chaos. You acknowledge that your day is unpredictable and you try to do all the work you can do up front. That way, when chaos does come, you are prepared. I’ve worked as a charge nurse and an educator, and you do more planning work and coordinating with that. I think it’s just helped.
SM: How do you brainstorm the themes for the shows?
CC: Well, for this last one, I was going to the bathroom—I was going pee—and all of a sudden I had this idea for Beyoncé.
SM: Epiphany?
CC: It was, it really was—Epipha-pee!
In the past, though, I’ve just brainstormed with friends. Bill Murray just came up in conversation. And because we’d done a few shows around men, I decided I needed to do something about women. Plus, Beyoncé’s a total boss. It just made a lot of sense.
The key pieces are just ensuring that the person we choose [as a theme] has a bit of nostalgia about them that people can connect to. That they can be funny, but also people clearly have to like the actual subject. It’s that connection—we love pop culture, you can’t avoid it. Our goal of inclusivity is trying to get people from different parts of the community to come out. Again, pop culture is a piece to that. You’re getting people from the suburbs to come in and look at art (which is amazing), but also, they’re getting exposed to different forms of art: drag, performance monologue, music. It just brings out a different crew, which I appreciate.
SM: Your past events have often been free or by donation. Why did you decide to do it differently this time?
CC: Traditionally we haven’t had a door cost; we really wanted to ensure that everyone can attend if they want to. This is the first time we’ve had a door fee, which I chose in part so that we have an honorarium for the performance artists. We thought eight dollars at the lower end of the sliding scale would be affordable to most people, but we still have that caveat that if people can’t afford it, they can email us and we can put them on a list. I know that we could make more money off of it, if we wanted to. But not everything should have to have a price. It’s expensive to live [in Vancouver], for artists especially. If you make the intention to make [something] affordable, it can be.
Untitled by Leanna Litvinenko
SM: And the proceeds from this door fee will go directly to the Positive Women’s Network, right? Can you tell me a little about what they do and why you choose to support them?
CC: I’ve worked in HIV, primary care, and mental health and addictions for seven years, and I’ve been on the Positive Women’s Network board for almost two years. The PWN provides support all across BC, through the internet and through an educator who goes across the community to provide education about HIV. They also have retreats; they provide money for the women to fly down and give them money for their childcare. It’s one of the few places where women can go to be open about their HIV status without dealing with stigma. Especially in rural communities, it’s just not safe to disclose your HIV status, and even in an urban centre, stigma is one of the most persistent things that has followed over the trajectory of HIV. So even though people can live very healthy lives and are not a risk to the community, because of the way our justice system is organized, it’s still very much a crime to have HIV.
So, [PWN] is great. They have a drop-in, a food bank day, and they help with general support and advocacy in the community. They do amazing, amazing work.
Untitled by Carl Ostberg
SM:What’s been the biggest challenge you faced while organizing Flawless?
CC: At the beginning for this show we weren’t getting enough submissions, which was scary for me. It’s hard not to compare to past shows; in the past we’ve had a lot of submissions up front. At this point we’re very comfortable with how many submissions we have, but it has actually been the lowest amount ever. I think people are afraid to ruin Beyoncé’s face, and she’s hard for people to be satirical about her. There’s a great Saturday Night Live sketch about it called the “Bagency.” You can’t criticize Beyoncé or you’ll be locked up and put away. She can’t be touched—she’s worshipped.
SM: What kind of submissions have you received?
CC: We got some really, really awesome stuff. When we weren’t getting enough submissions, I was hashtagging the “Beyhive” and other Beyoncé-type things on Instagram and Twitter, so we were able to get international contacts. We have submissions from Spain, South Africa, London, LA, Halifax, Toronto, Israel. A lot of them are younger people, so instead of them having to pay a lot for shipping, we’re going to be projecting their submissions.
SM: Okay, one last question: What’s your favourite Beyoncé song?
CC: I love listening to “Grown Woman,” but it’s a very close one to “Crazy in Love.” It’s just so fun to listen to “Grown Woman” while you’re at home, chillin’, or even cleaning. I think it’s great. ‘Cause I’m just like, “Yeah, I am a grown woman…so empowered!”
Flawless takes place Saturday, April 18 from 7 pm – 2 am at Studio East.
Tickets are available online or at the door.
Vivek Shraya is a musician, writer, artist, and performer based in Toronto. His books and music have influenced the queer community and continue to provide an accessible outlet for youth around the country. Sad Mag’s Helen Wong interviewed Shraya about his music, writing and creative process.
Helen Wong: How do you transition between songwriting and writing for literature? Do you see these as entirely separate media or as extensions of one another?
Vivek Shraya: I tend to view them as separate formats. Songwriting has many limitations that writing for literature doesn’t have. In a pop song format, for instance, there is generally only three to four minutes to convey a feeling or idea. Writing involves an empty screen where anything and everything is possible. This is intimidating. However, they align in how they both involve hunting for the right words to express a specific sentiment.
HW: There is a certain poetry and lyricism present in your prose. Do you treat your books like songs?
VS: One of my editors for God Loves Hair told me that the first draft lacked the musicality inherent in my songwriting. This feedback has stayed with me and since then, (and without contradicting my last answer) I try to pull from my entire writing toolkit, including songwriting techniques, in any kind of writing.
When I wrote She of the Mountains, I would often hum out phrases, which would help me construct sentences or ideas.
HW: In an interview that you did with Scott Dagostino, he stated that ‘if you don’t see the book you need, write it!’ Does this carry weight for you?
VS: Absolutely. All three of my books have been ultimately motivated by wanting to write the kinds of books that would have made a difference and made me feel less alone in my youth.
HW: Is it hard to be self-reflexive? How has Leslie Feinberg’s books influenced you and your choice to write semi-autobiographical novels?
VS: During the creative process, being self-reflexive is what comes naturally to me. I pull from my own experiences. Where self-reflexivity becomes challenging is when the art itself is released, when people know (or think they know) aspects of yourself that I didn’t directly communicate to them. I also worry that self-reflexivity has become a bit of a crutch for me, because I am so comfortable with it. This is why I am excited about pushing outside this comfort zone and exploring fiction further.
Stone Butch Blues was the first LGBT book I read and it impressed upon me the power of personal narrative. I connected to so many of the experiences in the book and simultaneously thought about the differences between my experiences and that of the protagonist. What could a book that detailed those differences—having immigrant parents and growing up in a Hindu household—look like? The only way I could answer this question was to write God Loves Hair.
HW: There is a theme of “queering,” of creating strange normative ways of being, that I find present in She of the Mountains, especially in the sentence structure, formation of sentences, the fusion of language and image and the placement of words within the pages. All these aspects serve to deconstruct normative perceptions and patterns of what a book should be. Does your book act as a microcosm for a larger platform? How do these ideas relate to your work on a larger scale?
VS: Earlier in my career, I always played by the rules. I didn’t call myself a musician because I didn’t play instruments. I often heard I over-sang, and so I explored restraint in my songwriting. As I have grown, it’s been upsetting to realize how many of these rules are racialized.
Who has defined this idea that a real musician is someone who plays instruments, versus someone who makes music? Was I truly over-singing or was it that my style didn’t conform to Western expectations? Many of the reviews of She of the Mountains have referred to it as “experimental.” Who defines what a traditional novel should look like?
While I wouldn’t say the book is a microcosm for a larger platform (outside of wanting to challenge biphobia), I am in a place in my art practice where I am committed to exploring what feels instinctual to me instead of conforming to what has been prescribed.
HW: In a book review by Quill and Quire, they state that ‘what [Vivek] achieves with She of the Mountains is so new, we don’t have the proper words to articulate its success’. How do you express an idea or emotion that exists outside the construct of language? What do you do to carve out your own place within these systems?
VS: The truth is, I was terrified that no one would connect to She of the Mountains, especially after receiving feedback that the book was alienating. Also, when you observe what is popular or what connects, the message is seldom that difference is valued.
Thankfully, the response has been very positive and this has been a crucial reminder to not underestimate readers and to always stay true. The latter hasn’t always translated to success for me, but it has meant that I always have the knowledge that I was honest.
Carving space is a work in progress. My immigrant parents have been often told to make nice, be grateful, don’t push and be quiet. These ideas were then imposed upon me but the hope is that with each piece of art I produce, I am pushing back.
HW: In an interview with Mote Magazine you state that you conceive your music starting with a visual idea or abstracted image. How do you make these abstracted visual images concrete? Do you feel constricted by language?
VS: Writing is an abstract process that I would describe as churning out formless ideas into the physical realm. For example when I was working on She of the Mountains, I thought I had finished the mythology section, but I kept imagining Ganesh in a forest. I even heard the words: “Go into the forest.” All I can do as a writer is listen. I ended up writing a section that begins with Ganesh being haunted by an image of the forest, as a way to realize the idea, and in the end, this section became a significant part of the story.
Language, particularly English, does feel constrictive. I grew up singing Hindu prayers where each word invoked so much emotion. This is likely part of why I am an interdisciplinary artist, to have room to express myself outside just words.
HW: How do you link all your practices in media from music, film, literature, and art? How do you propel this interdisciplinary dialogue?
VS: The desire to link practices comes from wanting to challenge myself and to see how an idea can be further developed outside the central medium I have chosen for it. I also have a short attention span and am often trying to think about how to capture an audience. So, in book readings, I incorporate projected images, movement and song, and for a recent installation, Your Cloud, I released a cover of the Tori Amos song the project was named after.
I also propel this interdisciplinary dialogue by collaborating with other artists, to see how they too might be able to develop an idea. The illustrations that Juliana Neufeld (God Loves Hair) and Raymond Biesinger (She of the Mountains) came up with not only enhance the text, but also provide alternate perspectives and entry points for the reader.
HW: I like the idea of recontextualizing tradition, it is present in your novels and music. How do you manage to merge your background with the various art practices you partake in? Does it influence your sound?
My background is present at all times. I can’t separate it and I’m not actively working to separate. Earlier in my career I attempted to separate my background—my Indianness, my queerness, my femmeness—from my work, especially in my music. But this process was exhausting and ultimately dishonest. I am who I am at all times, and perhaps even more so when I am creating. Art is constantly pushing me to be my truest self, and this often means me pushing against traditional formats, to see what else might be possible.
David Balzer’s thought-provoking new book, Curationism: How Curating Took Over the Art World and Everything Else (Coach House Press/Pluto Press), explores what it means for the verb “curate” to be adopted by popular culture. Whether liking a friend’s post on Facebook, purchasing a cookbook on Amazon, or interacting with one of Subway’s “sandwich artists,” we’ve all become “curators” of our own identities. And with the advent of the Internet, it seems like we have more power over the choices we make than ever before. But is that really the case? And if everyone is a curator, then what is art? Is there any room left for spontaneous experience?
Balzer tackles these massive existential queries in the pages of his book, and will be exploring them during a talk at Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery on April 10. Sad Mag’s Shannon Tien sat down with Balzer for a sneak peak of Friday’s event.
Shannon Tien: Can you explain how the term “curate” has changed over time?
David Balzer: So there’s the traditional curator who studies art history, gets their PhD, does a museum studies certificate, and then they work in the back rooms of museums with restorers and they’re kind of custodians of art historical works. That isn’t really what I’m interested in.
I’m interested in the contemporary curator. That idea can be traced back all the way to the Roman Empire. The Latin root of “curator” means to care for something. So the curators in the Roman Empire were basically caretakers.
The curator has never been easy to define; it’s only nowadays that we think of the curator as a “real” job. So I argue that the curator becomes super contemporary when the curator’s asked not just to care for things, but to give value to them. That happens in the early to mid-20th Century. Then the real birth of the curator in terms of how we understand it happens in the conceptual art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. And at this point, curators are not just giving value to objects, but they’re also performing the value of art. That aspect of performance in curating is the thing I think is kind of key in understanding how curating transitioned from the art world to popular culture.
Basically, using “curate” as a verb—saying that you’re going to “curate” something, or that “I curated a collection of hats”—the Oxford English Dictionary traces that usage back only to the early 1980s. And the usage that they find for their draft edition is from the world of performance art, which I think is really telling. It’s a dance performance at this New York avant-garde space called The Kitchen being written about by The New York Times. From that point on you see the word “to curate” or “curated by” used in the context of dance or music festivals and then by the 1990s, when the contemporary curator becomes a really important part of the institution, that word is used more and more and then the Internet happens and everyone sort of appropriates its use.
ST: When exactly did our own cultural consumption become a curatorial act?
DB: You know the saying in retail, “The customer’s always right”? I think that it’s changed to, “The customer must always feel as if they’re choosing.” When you “curate” something you’re “choosing,” and businesses have really latched onto this as a means of superficially empowering consumers. I think we can pinpoint it in the late 1990s going past Y2K, when all of a sudden we were made to choose a lot as consumers. There’s deep sociological and demographic research that needs to back it up, but generally the Internet has become a fact of life for a lot of people. At the same time there’s a crisis in terms of cultural consumption. In the art world, art institutions are not being funded the way they like, and in other spheres such as book buying, for instance, you’ve got these huge chains emerging in the ‘90s like Borders and Chapters and they just swallow up the little brick and mortar stores. So culture’s getting really homogenized at the same time that everyone’s going online and wondering who they are and interacting with people in a more active and global way than ever before. But whenever I’m talking about “choosing” I’m being a little ironic because I think that the idea of cultural curating is not necessarily the most empowering thing in terms of giving us choice. It kind of provides us with this illusion of choice.
ST: Can you talk about the rise of “normcore,” or the idea that taste is irrelevant because the Internet makes everything available to everyone?
DB: I don’t think the idea of curating would ever become completely obsolete. But what I do argue—and these ideas are present in the work of K-HOLE, the group that birthed the term “normcore,” and they’re present in post-Marxist Italian theory—this idea that we’re online and we’re asked to perform what we like and what our taste is. But people who are thinking about it, who are aware of possibly inhabiting the Matrix or whatever, can easily sense that what we’re doing online is prompted by similar algorithms, and what we like is highly influenced by what other people like. In fact we’re encouraged to like what other people like. When we buy something on Amazon, Amazon tells us what other people bought in addition to what we’re buying as a prompt to see if we might want to buy that too. It’s a bit of disingenuous uniqueness that online curating promotes. And if you think of it for five seconds, you realize that the sorts of choices you’re being asked to make as a social media user are pretty flattening.
ST: Are algorithms robot curators? Are they the future of curating?
DB: Well in a way I think that the algorithm is curatorial but also anti-curatorial. If you program something that can do the choosing for you in a semi-cognisant way, this choosing is only based on what’s been chosen before. But I like the idea that a program can show us that curating is not the most unique or difficult thing that one can engage with. I think that it can really call into serious question our precious notions of what it means to curate. But I also think that a good thing to come out of it would be to bring us back to a more thoughtful meditation on what it actually means to curate or choose. It’s maybe the end point of this discussion where curating has reached such an accelerated moment that now we’re getting computers and software to do it for us.
ST: How has this book affected your own “curationism”?
DB: I think that as someone who as been a critic for a long time, who’s a voracious consumer of film, art, music, literature, and talks about it all the time, I’ve sort of reached a moment, and it was when I was writing the book—and maybe it had to do with a personal element of this [which] was that I just exited a very long term relationship that was very much built around the expression of taste—where I thought, “Why is taste so important? And why am I always trying to perform what I like for everybody? Why does it matter? Isn’t there a better way to engage with culture and show how much it means to me?” So this book maybe represents that existential crisis.
This interview has been condensed and edited. Catch David Balzer at Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery on April 10 at 7 p.m.
Throughout April, bookstores, libraries and publishers in BC are encouraging the public to “Read Local, Buy Local, Think Global” as part of a three-week campaign. Launched by The Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia (ABPBC), Read Local BC features more than 25 free events with local authors throughout the province, including nine fiction, poetry, non-fiction and children’s readings in Vancouver.
In the spirit of Read Local BC, and the sharing of stories, ideas and histories that are bound to transpire between Vancouverites, Megan Jones sat down with Poetry is Dead editor, Can’t Lit podcaster and Davie Street Translations author Daniel Zomparelli to discuss local books, literary events, and why he still chooses to live and write in Vancouver.
Photo by Rob Seebacher
Megan Jones: So many dedicated, award-winning writers call Vancouver home, and many choose to publish locally. Our writing community is stronger and more supportive than ever, it seems. But for someone who’s not a writer or publishing industry expert, it doesn’t always feel that way—readings and book launches have the reputation of being exclusive and even intimidating. How can we involve and include the non-writing public more in Vancouver’s literary scene? Does it even matter?
Daniel Zomparelli: Yes, it does matter. It’s always nice to have people outside the literary community at events, and I’m interested in how to make that happen. For example, we try to create Poetry Is Dead events that get everyone interested [such as the well-attended “Humour Issue” launch, with performances from poets and local comedians]. Does it always work? No, but when it does, it’s a great event. There’s always ways to make readings less intimidating for people outside of the literary community, such as: host it at an interesting venue and have a cash bar. Also, maybe avoid words like “ontological” in your event info.
MJ: Vancouver-born authors often choose to relocate to Toronto or Montreal, where there’s proximity to New York, and comparably cheaper rent (and beer and wine, which is perhaps just as important). Why have you decided to stay in Vancouver?
DZ: I stick to Vancouver for several reasons, but the main reasons are my family and my anxiety. As you’ve pointed out, there’s a great community in this city, and as a result I have a strong support system. Rent and food might be expensive and I might constantly play chicken with my credit card bill, but there is something about being close to the ocean that keeps me calm. Like, at any point if I wanted to, I could just walk out to the ocean and keep going (I basically want to reverse TheLittle Mermaid myself). My friend Alicia Tobin said it best with “I missed my bus stop & got off at the ocean & let the waves of a million years of losses and victories wash over my tired body. Sorry I am late.” (Quote thanks to Rebecca Slaven).
MJ: How does the province of BC – its wilderness, people and cities – inform your work?
DZ: People and how they relate to each other and to nature and the city inspires and informs my work. I’m concerned specifically with happiness in my work, and considering how Vancouverites are sometimes conceived of as “cold,” there’s a lot to work with here. For this reason, I’m looking forward to the Read Local BC event, Roughing It in the Bush, because a lot of the readings will deal with BC’s landscape in unexpected ways. Plus some of the writers are major influences on my own poetics. I’m very excited about this event, which I happen to be hosting!
MJ: What’s one thing about BC’s publishing industry that you love, and what’s one aspect you’d love to see changed?
DZ: I love that work composed and produced in BC is not afraid of specificity. I love writing that explores small town histories, writing unafraid of locating a reader. Small presses within BC make this possible.
If I’m going to be honest about what I’d love to see changed, it would be the choice of author photos in books.
MJ: What local book are you currently reading? What’s your favourite BC book ever?
DZ: I’m reading Leah Horlick’s For Your Own Good. I just finished Matt Rader’s What I Want To Tell Goes Like This. I have said it before and I will say it again: Artificial Cherry by Billeh Nickerson is a fucking delight. If you haven’t purchased a poetry book before, give that one a try. One poem has the word “anal” more times than I’ve said it my entire life, and I’m anal-retentive.
MJ: What’s been your favourite literary event in Vancouver in the past year?
DZ: So far, my favourites are events put on by the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series. I’m obviously biased, since I’ve been a reader, but they always choose a great space and host so many amazing writers, and their events are always jam-packed. Plus, hosts and dreamboats Dina Del Bucchia and Sean Cranbury let me (and others, too) read whatever I want. The audience is always receptive.
I’m also looking forward to the Read Local BC events. Basically all of my favourite writers are reading this month for the campaign, so I’m excited to see what happens at the events, especially An Evolving City with literary super duo Wayde Compton and George Bowering on April 9 at Pulp Fiction.
Read Local BC Events in Vancouver
Writing About First Nations with Jean Barman, Paige Raibmon and Jennifer Kramer
Tuesday, April 7 at 7 pm: Book Warehouse, 4118 Main Street
Three celebrated UBC Press authors discuss their discoveries in research, how writing about First Nations people has changed over time, and the challenges and successes of the process.
An Evolving City: Writing Vancouver’s Past, Present & Future with George Bowering and Wayde Compton
Thursday, April 9 at 7:30 pm: Pulp Fiction, 2422 Main Street, Vancouver
Join two of Canada’s literary heavyweights for a conversation exploring Vancouver’s vast networks of people, streets, and change over time. From the storied streets of East Vancouver in the 1960s to a haunting, speculative vision of the city of glass, these two renowned authors reveal their probing impressions of a beloved yet flawed city.
Roughing it in the Bush Revisited with Jordan Abel, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Evelyn Lau, Daphne Marlatt, W.H. New and George Stanley
Wednesday, April 15th at 7:30 pm: Artspeak Gallery, 233 Carrall Street, Vancouver
As big industry and increased construction continues Vancouver’s sprawl into nature, do we give thought to how we invade and modify our own natures through technology? Or to what happens when wilderness creeps back in, reclaiming the crack of a sidewalk or the corner of an abandoned lot? Five Vancouver poets explore the ever-evolving representation of urban and rural spaces in Canadian art. Hosted by poet and Poetry Is Dead editor Daniel Zomparelli.
Secrets, Booze & Rebellion: Vancouver’s Unknown History with Eve Lazarus, Daniel Francis, and Aaron Chapman
Wednesday, April 15 at 7 pm, Lynn Valley Public Library, 1277 Lynn Valley Road
Discover the historical underworld of Vancouver and the adventures that took place in many of the buildings and streets still standing today. Three of the city’s finest historians share its rollicking history, from cops turned robbers, to rum-running entrepreneurs during prohibition, and the glamourous yet naughty history of one of the city’s oldest nightclubs.
Read Local BC Children’s Readings
April 13-18with various authors and locations
“It’s time for men to step up and play a bigger game,” says Dwayne Klassen from centre stage at the Imperial last weekend. “We must own our authentic masculine power and be Champions to women, heroes to children and brothers to each other.”
In all honesty, I had no idea what to expect from Vancouver’s BIL Conference, an alternative and more accessible spin-off of the increasingly popular TED events. Klassen’s presentation on “Man Champions and Woman Heroes,” was just one of more than 60 to grace the stage at Vancouver’s second ever BIL Conference, which took place March 21 – 22. In under two hours, I watched presentations by a scientist, an entrepreneur, a politician and even an ex-monk. The best part? As a by-donation event, attending BIL was completely affordable.
“Unlike TED, our event is open to the public, widely accessible and fully participant driven. When participants arrive at the venue, they help with the creation of the event from setting up chairs to organizing the day’s schedule and everything in between,” says Michael Cummings, co-founder of BIL. “Everyone at the event actively shapes its outcome. It’s about building community and taking ownership of the event as their own.” Founded in 2007, this “unconference” has been hosted across the globe, in countries as far as Afghanistan, India, England, France, and Tunisia.
The schedule for BIL was as flexible as the admission price; speakers could sign up to participate as late as the day itself. In theory, says Cummings, anyone “knowledgeable or incredibly passionate about a certain topic” could opt to speak. Not that this diminishes the quality of the line-up; Luke Nosek (Founder of Paypal), George Whitesides (CEO of Virgin Galactic) and Blake Mycoskie (TOMS Shoes) are just three former speakers to have participated in a BIL conference. Highlights from this year’s conference include Beauty Night Founder and Executive Director Caroline MacGillivray on building a community around a cause; Green Party candidate Lynne Quarmby on science and activism; and General Fusion Founder Michael Delage on fusion energy.
