Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review / Jongens
“All I want to do now is run and be in love” is the first thing my movie date says after seeing Mischa Kamp’s Jongens (“Boys”) at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival. She certainly has a point: no matter what your gender, age, or sexual orientation, this queer coming-of-age story will transport you back to being fifteen, in love for the first time, and hopelessly confused about it.
Jongens is the story of Steiger (Gijs Blom), a reserved teenager who falls for his teammate Marc (Ko Zandvliet) while training for the national relay racing championships. It quickly becomes clear that the attraction is mutual, and Marc and Steiger grow steadily closer. Not everything is rosy for the young lovers, however, their budding romance complicated by an unruly older brother, an unwanted girlfriend, and Steiger’s uncertainty about his sexual orientation. A couple of extremely ill-timed encounters between the two boys throw everything into question, the romantic tension hitting some all time highs. 
Women are largely absent from the film, Steiger’s mother having died in a motorcycle accident a few years prior. Instead, Kamp focuses on a theme of male-to-male love that is rarely explored in cinema. Through his relationship with Marc, Steiger not only learns to understand love romantically, but also from the perspective of a friend, teammate, brother, and son. These platonic subplots add emotional complexity to the film, and are in some ways more moving than the main action.
Excellently cast and featuring stellar performances by Blom en Zandvliet alike, the film is sweet, lighthearted and engaging. With sun-drenched cinematography, Jongens promises to keep viewers “awing” and “oh no-ing” for the full 78 minutes of hormone-laden emotion.
If you haven’t had a chance to check-out the Queer Film Festival yet, tonight is your last chance! Head to the Vancouver Playhouse for the screening of Girl Trash: All Night Long at 7:00pm, then follow the lantern-lit procession to the Junction for the official Closing Gala party featuring performances by Isolde N Barron and Thanks Jem!
Artist Profile / Shelley Stefan, Painter from the Suburbia Issue
Daryn Wright heads out to Lake Errock, BC to chat with Suburbia Issue artist, Shelley Stefan. Check out Stefan’s up-coming exhibition at Make Creative on Thursday August 28, 2014: Multiplicity of Self, Queer Portraits. Read the full article in Sad Mag’s Suburbia Issue, out in Fall 2014.
Shelley Stefan stokes the fire in her wood stove.
Her small studio is an artist’s dream: heavy wooden doors open up to a tiny room filled with tubes of oil paints, a cushy armchair, and various bric-a-brac—a seventies bear lamp, an American flag. The most striking element of the space, however, are the self-portraits that cover the walls from floor to ceiling. In black charcoal, images of Stefan look back like from a broken mirror—some look angry, some sad, some pensive.
Stefan, whose work includes “The Lesbian Effigies” (2006) and “B is for Butch” (2010), studied at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana and the Maine College of Art, and currently teaches in the Department of Fine Arts at the University of the Fraser Valley. Growing up in Chicago, Stefan has lived in several urban centers but now calls Lake Errock home. The rural setting, far from a stone’s throw from the city, seems at odds with the politics of identity, sexuality, and gender at work in her paintings.
Despite this, Stefan seems at home. Throughout the interview the 40-year-old painter kept the stove, whose masonry she laid herself, well-fed with the firewood she chops and stores just outside.
Shelley Stefan: Right now I’ve got about four series on the go. In the studio here there’s a series of self-portraits—I’m aiming to do hundreds of mirror-based [self-portraiture], kind of old-school, academic, kind of dialing it back to the traditional methods of introspection.
I find there’s something really neat when there’s the human form live, and you surrender a bit of accuracy, but what you get is kind of like raw imperfect humanness that I really like. I’m working with my own face for awhile, just to see if I do this 300 times, am I seeing different elements of myself? Some of them are off, some of them are moody, and some of them look like my ancestors.
They all seem different. They’re all me looking in a mirror at different times. It’s almost embarrassing, and I think that’s the point. I’m at the point in my career where I kind of want to allow myself to be vulnerable.
Sad Mag: Self-portraiture—particularly the kind you’re doing, with a mirror—is rooted in an old art form. There seems to be a connection between this practice and the rural space you reside in. Do you think they’re related in any way?
SS: I think that there’s a part of me that’s very raw and sublime. I think that comes first. I have Italian ancestors who were artists, and that can mean many things but what it means for me is there’s this intense passionate anchor. So having my studio in a rural space like this is a way to ground and isolate that kind of passionate energy in a way that ironically isn’t ego-based. It’s almost like it’s a laboratory and I’m trying to keep the dish clear. So I guess on some level as an artist, my choice of a rural studio feels like the best substrate to tease out the rawest and purest emotion in my work. I’m really influenced by my surroundings.
SM: Through the process, have you learned anything about yourself?
SS: I’m still discovering. Through my works in the past few years I’ve discovered a lot about interiority. When I’ve been working in portraiture, I’ve realized on some level, self-portraiture, if done properly, allows for uncovering different facets.
I feel completely connected to my Italian ancestors when I paint and draw. It’s crazy. There’s something about listening to Italian opera and being in here and being like, “They get me.” When I’m painting and I’m in the middle of it and there’s Italian opera on I’m like, “Those fuckers are crazy and so am I and it’s okay, because you’re human. You’re alive on this planet.”
You can see Stefan’s work up-close and personal at her upcoming solo exhibition at Make (257 East 7th Ave) on Thursday August 28th from 7– 10pm featuring Italian-themed beverages and the musical stylings of DJ Ruggedly Handsome.
Shelley Stefan
Multiplicity of Self – Queer Portraits
August 28 to September 22, 2014
OPENING RECEPTION:Thursday August 28, 2014 from 7– 10pm
Vancouver Notables / Christina Andreola
Christina Andreola is a managing producer at SHIFT Theatre Society, with past experience in stage management and directing. After chronicling one too many appalling dates, she and director Deneh Cho’ Thompson decided to pen the script for The Dudes of My Life, a look at what it’s like to balance family expectations for a life partner with what’s actually available in the world of Tinder.
Sad Mag: You’re used to being behind the scenes as a producer, director and stage manager. What’s it like being on stage now, and even more so, acting solo?
Christina Andreola: Being on this side is a little frightening. And it’s a lot of fun. At a certain point you just have to go. The metaphor I use is the train is leaving the station whether you’re on it or not so you just have to keep working. There was one day where I went through a year’s worth of theatre training in an hour. It was a lot of learning how to be on this side. It’s a lot harder than it looks, I should say.
SM: How did you and your director, Deneh, come to work together?
CA: One evening I went on a two in one (two dates in one evening). I came home from number two, which was a bit abysmal. Deneh is one of my roommates, and I was telling him all about it, and he said, “If you ever want to do a show about your dudes, let me know.”
One year for Christmas I got a big Moleskine notebook and I thought it would be funny to start writing down all the guys I interacted with on dates. And the same thing happened in 2011, 2012, 2013… we started plotting that material onto a graph, and looking through the history was a little terrifying.
SM:Was there one particular experience that sparked the writing of this play?
CA: That was “Survivor Liar.” It was the second of the two-in-one dates, and we were out at the Storm Crow for three hours and it was awesome. But as it was closing, I got up to use the bathroom and he had texted me instead of his roommate. It said, “Hey buddy, tape Survivor for me. Date’s going ok, not sure if I want to keep talking to her though.” I looked at my phone and I was mortified. I told him he’d texted the wrong person, and he was embarrassed. But then it was another ten minutes before they brought the bill over. So it was awkward. Then when we were leaving I told him, “Don’t worry, you probably feel worse about it than I do. It was nice to meet you.” He said, “Yeah, maybe I’ll see you again.” I turned around and called him a liar. So that’s “Survivor Liar.” It made for a great story to tell at parties, though.
SM:What role does your family play in the show?
CA: My mom is a big part of the show. She’s always been pro independence and telling me I can be whomever I want, and telling me not to settle for any guy. She’s always giving me advice and that advice turned into rules or guidelines, so she’s been the voice in my head. I have 14 family members, and we get together at all the big holidays. I’ve brought home a few people and it’s like the family gauntlet. So it’s one thing to have my mom’s set of rules, and to also know what I’m looking for in a guy, but then to balance all these other expectations gets pretty difficult.
SM: You reference the 90’s rom-com genre in the play. Do you feel a sense of loss connected to how dating’s changed since those days?
CA: It’s a very interesting world, dating online. I haven’t tried anything other than Tinder. It’s crazy to have to get to know a person by making a snap judgment based on their looks and a short write-up. Specifically on Tinder, which is just like hot or not. I’ve heard of Tinder parties where someone’s phone gets hooked up to the TV and then everyone swipes through the photos. I’ve had family Tinder experiences, where they’ve seen a profile I brought home and they all decided to swipe for him.
SM: What will you be working on next?
CA: We have a show coming up at The Shop in October for which I’ll be a managing producer, a role I’m much more comfortable in. It’s a spooky show, perfect for around Halloween time.
SM: How will your experience in the role of actor affect your perspective as a producer?
CA: It’s very eye opening. I’ve been put on a ban from doing any producing or going to meetings; I’m not allowed to do anything except learn my lines, learn my blocking, and act. The show is very prop heavy, too. Sometimes as a producer you can get caught up in deadlines and technical details, but on the artistic side sometimes you have to be open to working last minute on the script or making revisions right up until the end.
SM: What’s your favourite go-to drink for a first date?
CA: If I’m at the Narrows, Strongbow. Or a Michelada at Los Cuervos. Or whatever’s on tap at The Whip. I’ve got some regular places.
The Dudes of My Life is playing at The Shop Theatre August 19-23rd.
Dispatches / Evan Ducharme
After all the success from completing the 68 lb. Challenge at Eco Fashion Week back in April, Sad Mag friend Evan Ducharme has invited us to witness his very first liberating collection ICONOCLAST, where everything—from music to venue—has been designed by Evan. This VCAD alumni has been featured in Fashion Night Out Vancouver with his collection Crepuscule, as well as Eco-Fashion Week with his collection Belladonna; both lines received immense positive feedback. I have no doubt in my mind that his upcoming Made to Measure runway show on Friday August 22nd at East Van Studios will be stunning. I had a chance to chat with Evan before the big day.
SAD MAG: What should we expect on Friday August 22nd?
EVAN DUCHARME: This season I started with an approach to Prohibition-era mechanicism. I merged a dystopian society with 1920s-30s silhouettes in the style of the silent film Metropolis. The narrative compares the cataclysmic decline in Metropolis to Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond and her descent into madness as she clings desperately to her sinking film career. The collection consists of 10 looks for the womenswear and unisex markets.
SM: What three words would you use to describe this new collection?
ED: Industrial. Streamlined. Elegant.
SM: How excited are you to showcase all of your hard work?
ED: Very! It’s my first solo presentation, having full control of the environment and mood is a privilege. I’m blessed to have a great team of people alongside me to help bring my vision to the catwalk; I hope it’s well received.
Interview / Pandora Young, Rain City Illustration
It’s fair to assume that the majority of people in Vancouver like being outside during the summer. Besides being an ideal time to appreciate the city’s many outdoor amenities, the summer also happens to be a wonderfully generous time in the sense of yielding opportunities to appreciate local artwork. Each of these warrant our support and appreciation I would argue (and I encourage you to investigate as many as you have occasion to), but one such opportunity is perhaps in particular worth getting excited about. That is, the currently debuting ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ exhibition, showing from now until September 7th at the Ayden Gallery (88 W. Pender St., Suite #2103).
Billed as a visual exploration of pleasure, the exhibit showcases an impressive range of original illustrative works independently conceived and curated by eight local female artists of varying artistic backgrounds. The combined collection aims to evidence a diversity of different artistic meditations on the topic, and can be expected to offer an intriguing look at some of the impressive works to recently emanate from Vancouver’s emerging class of enterprising young female artists.
Over the weekend I caught up with the chief curator of the exhibition, Pandora Young, to quickly glean from her some further details about the show.
Sad Mag: Right—so if you don’t object, we’ll start by briefly treading over some biographical details, then from there we can proceed with more inquiring questions concerning the artwork you’ll be exhibiting along with your peers at the Midsummer Night’s Dream exhibition. I gather that you’re a graduate of Emily Carr University and that you currently work and reside here in Vancouver; aside from those details however, I can’t speak much to your background. Can you tell me where you’re from?
Pandora Young: I was born in Victoria, British Columbia, and enjoyed an unorthodox upbringing. When I was young my parents brought me along to nude beaches, Star Trek conventions, Renaissance fairs. I grew up among Klingons and Vikings, suspended between 1500 and 2500. The period I was least adjusted to was that in the middle.
SM: What school(s) did you attend here and/or elsewhere? Were you enrolled in a specific program, or concerned with any particular area of focus?
PY: I spent a year in Japan as an exchange student at 16 due to, as my mother might have put it, an unhealthy preoccupation with the Japanimé. Immersion into such an illustratively versed and illustratively permeated culture was thoroughly enriching. I can’t think of a time when I was more ravenously, feverishly, ragingly inspired. I was surrounded by things that were so devastatingly cool to a teenaged kid, I knew what I thought was sick and what I exactly wanted to make, and I couldn’t draw fast enough to get it all out.
I spent two years at the University of Victoria in my early twenties, majoring in Anthropology, and studying linguistics, history, archeology, comparative religions, and more. Basically if it was a science you wouldn’t get paid for, I was there. In the end, I felt that Anthropology was too academic, though methodized as it needed to be, and ironically lost touch with the very humanity it studied. That in part led me to finally pursue art as more than a hobby, and to find a livelihood where humanity not only has space, but is requisite.
SM: You previously mentioned that ‘A Mid Summer Night’s Dream’ has an artistic lineage that to some extent dates back to your involvement with Rain City Illustration a couple of years back. Can you explain to me what Rain City Illustration was and or is, and clarify the specific nature of your involvement with it?
PY: A few years back, Emily Carr introduced a small new major, Illustration, anticipating little interest. They received well over a hundred applications for around two-dozen spots. Rain City Illustration was created as a space for the tremendous amount of passion we were made aware existed within the student community.
My involvement began when I took on manning their social media channels. In their third year I became president for the group. By that point we were the largest student group on campus with well over a hundred members. It was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever been part of. I was posited at the nexus of the numerous individual practices that bled into illustration, helping them communicate and cross pollinate, and from the vantage that hub provided the view was ceaselessly inspiring. Where others might only be witness to their own departments, entrenched in our own work as we often become, I saw unquantifiable creation happening in parallel, everyday. Over a hundred artists, each with their own heritage of media and method, all growing and evolving around me. I can’t imagine how a career professor of art isn’t overwhelmed by it.
SM: It’s been a few years since you ran Rain City Illustration, and now your expertise are being solicited to host and curate an exhibition at the Ayden Gallery. Can you explain to me what the show—‘A Mid Summer Night’s Dream—is about, and detail to me the exact capacity in which you are involved?
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a visual exploration of pleasure. Each of us, myself and the seven other women involved, we’re given the theme, and will bring back our own interpretations. I was asked to curate a show by Ayden Gallery, and it was a real fantasy come true for me as I’d often day dreamed what my perfect roster of favorite artists would be.
SM: What would you identify as the primary intellectual and artistic inspirations for the show?
We wanted to take pleasure and turn it over and over in our hands, investigate it. It seems like such a simple thing, but it’s so inalienably intertwined with pain, with drive, with creation, with mistake, with loss. It’s possibly the second most basic and universal impetus after feeding one’s self. […] Escaping poverty of pleasure, is the drive behind just about anything you can name; why human beings migrate to unknown continents, why one empire takes from another, the motive behind why human beings strive to do just about anything we do. It can also be the thing that hurts us the most, as the Buddha would tell us. The Greeks venerated Melpomene as the goddess of celebration and despair. So obviously there is a rich conversation there, and at its heart is an anthropological body of work we are creating.
SM: What does ‘pleasure’—the underlying conceptual focus of this exhibition—mean to you, and how has that interpretation of pleasure informed your own art submissions?
My own take on pleasure has been a darker one. I feel like, with the struggles in my life, I’ve had nine parts pain to every one pleasure. And yet, there’s been pleasure in that too. That string quartet quality of sublime heartbreak, the clean, perfect beauty of bottom of the pit sorrow, of harrowing pain. There’s something exquisite even in wretchedness. The very best love songs come from heartbreak, and poetry. Our humanity is universalized through it. I count myself lucky to be the kind of artist who thrives from this, because these are the inevitable aspects of life. I’ve always been one whose sails are filled by pain. I suppose you could call me a masochist. I tend to think of it simply as having a refined palette for a certain bitter wine.
SM: In what sense(s) are your submissions cohesive with those of the other contributing participants? Do your works share many similarities besides their common topical focus, or do they demonstrate a fairly wide range of aesthetic tastes and techniques?
In truth, I’ve yet to actually see. There’s a wide range of specializations involved: two oil painters, several illustrators, and a print maker. We’ve shared progress shots with one another, but each woman has worked from her respective studio, and the day of hanging was like opening a present on Christmas morning for me.
SM: Do you have any discernable tendencies in terms of where and when you like to practice art?
At home, in total solitude.
SM: Right—ok so before we wrap this up, I have left just a few slightly more personal questions concerning your life, and your aspirations and interests outside and beyond this particular exhibit we’ve been discussing. Have you in mind any plans for after the conclusion of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’? Are there yet any other projects you’re planning or working on that we can look forward to?
I have an upcoming show in January with Vancouver artist Nomi Chi at Hot Art Wet City that I’m really excited for. There is no theme, and for the first time in ages I won’t have to work around school projects, which means I can finally attend to the list of ideas I’ve forever wanted to explore—in my mind, that list is something like an old tattered papyrus scroll which unfurls comically across the floor and out the exit.
Q. What are some of your interests besides art?
Sudoku. History. Science. Languages.
SM: Are there certain artists/people/things from who/which you derive most inspiration?
[…] I love Schiele, Klimt, Ingre, Rackham, Dulac, Dore, Parrish. I cannot express enough love for the work of Norman Rockwell, whose works timelessly bring a tear to the eye and tell an entire story in an image. I think Canadian artist Kate Beaton is a genius beyond measure. I love Brad Kunkle, Vania, Yoshitaka Amano, Katsuhiro Otomo, Sachin Teng, Jeff Simpson, my teacher Justin Novak, Yoann Lossel, Michael Carson—Just to name a few! And of course, all the ladies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream!
Q. Lastly, who, if anyone, would you identify as your hero or role model?
My personal hero is Sponge Bob. Yes, seriously. He is enthusiastic, caring, thoughtful, eager to excel at his profession, loves his friends, and is insurmountably sincere.
A Midsummer’s Night Dream runs from now until September 7th at the Ayden Gallery (88 W. Pender St, Suite #2103) For more information about the show and its featured artists click here.
Vancouver Queer Film Festival Review / Bad Hair
Imagine that every day of your life is a bad hair day. You’re a nine-year-old dreamer, living in the hostile city of Caracas with your recently widowed mother and baby brother. You’re poor, rejected, and decidedly “different” from the other kids. Add a possible identity crisis into the mix, and you’re beginning to understand what it means to be Junior, the star of Mariana Rondón’s award-winning Pelo Malo (“Bad Hair”), now playing at Vancouver’s Queer Film Festival.
The plot is simple: a new school year is around the corner and Junior must decide how he wants to take his class head shot. Will he don the socially respectable button-down and trousers, or the flashy, straight-haired singers’ getup he dearly longs for? Making things harder, Junior’s singer fantasy is complicated by his impossibly curly mop of “pelo malo” that won’t lie flat no matter what he does, his family’s inability to pay for the photo shoot, and most importantly, his mother’s insistence that Junior start acting more like one of the other boys.
Torn between winning his mother’s love and honouring his own sense of self, our young hero’s choice becomes the audience’s own. Forced to examine our own lives under the lens, we wonder what our head shots say about us. What costumes have we put on? What roles are we playing? And what have we given up to become who we are? Prompting questions of identity and gender, love and suffering, survival and responsibility, one little boy’s snapshot thus becomes a tool for seeing the bigger picture.
Missed the showing? Pelo Malo will be playing again at The Vancouver Latin American Film Festival on August 29 (7 pm) and September 7 (3 pm) at The Cinemateque.
Click here to check out the other films playing at this year’s Queer Film Festival.
Interview / Benjamin Garner
My friendship with Ben Garner goes back to 2007, when we met at a bar named Canvas Lounge. We were both hired to work as the VIP hosts for a New York influenced minimalistic and modern venue. Between dealing with drunks and interpretive dancing, Ben and I got to know each other better and became friends. A couple of years later, I moved out of the country and Ben and I took different directions in our lives and careers. Having returned home I’ve come back to chat with Ben and catch up on time lost. Sitting down at his home and studio workspace I get to hear what he’s been up to, learn more about his art and get crotched-sniffed by his new pure bread boxer, Othello.
SAD MAG: It’s been a long time, Ben! It’s great to be here and catch up with you.
BEN GARNER: Yes, definitely! I’m excited to be chatting with you.
SM: It sounds like you’ve had several busy years while I was away. But before we get into any of that, let’s talk a bit about your background. How and where did the story of Ben begin?
BG: Well, I’m 34 years old and I was born in Phoenix, Arizona. I grew up in a place called La Quinta in California, which people commonly make reference to when I tell them that it’s about 20 minutes from Coachella. When I was in second grade my Mom, Dad, brother, sister and I moved to West Vancouver. Growing up I was involved with acting and modelling. I took modeling classes at Blanche MacDonald before it was even a thing. In my teens we moved back to California where I got heavily involved with theatre. Growing up I always knew I had to be creatively involved somehow…when I was 18 years old I moved back to Vancouver to attend Studio 58… this is where my life really started to take off in a whirlwind.
SM: Tell me more about that.
BG: Coming back to Vancouver I moved in with a total pothead chick named Elena. We lived downstairs while two lesbians and an East Indian dude who walked with one leg lived upstairs. Once I had settled into my new found freedom I started going to gay clubs. Elena and I were doing acid together-we did it every weekend for a month until we had a really weird trip in the Real Canadian Superstore and never did it again. I kind of felt like this was the initiation stage of entering into the ‘real’ world. It wasn’t that I had been detached from reality but I had finally birthed into my own perception of it. [And] this new perception-between hallucinations and hidings-would feed my desire to be somewhere else other than in the boring mundane 9 to 5 reality that I thought the world to be; I needed to believe the world I lived in was a magical place…
SM: So you had this awakening, you were trying to find your ground and make sense of the world and you realized you needed to be in a place that allowed your mind to expand. Am I hearing that right?
BG: Yes, absolutely. And even though I was sort of making some good progress in terms of coming into my own, into being Ben, I was going about it in a very disillusioned way. I began to have typical gay relationships and experience the highs of the nightlife combined with the lowest of lows… I struggled with depression and suicide many times… I was hospitalized a number of times and my personal life grew very difficult, especially as my sister was killed in a car crash only one month after I tried to take my own life…after traveling all over the states and experiencing more chaos in my life, I came back to Vancouver again. I was 23 years old and got into crystal meth with a friend who offered me a place to stay…I quickly relied on the drug as it proved to be the only way I could still believe that fantasy world I longed to live in…Looking back I was just afraid of life…and myself.
SM: So what happened next?
BG: [Well], after some time I was not [considered] safe to function in reality. I was picked up by ambulance several times and treated for psychosis…I very quickly became detached from any kind of reality. I truly was crazy…[and amidst all of this] everything around me was speaking to me. I was constantly trying to figure out some hidden meaning, some intricate formula for life…after months and month of manic behaviour I finally hit the bottom; there was nowhere else to go in my head. I began to pull myself into a different direction. I sobered up, got a job and went to back to college. I began taking classes again which sparked my interest in art and creativity. I went away on a travel abroad art history program for two months in Europe and upon returning I decided to enroll in Emily Carr.
SM: Wow, that’s quite a lot that you worked through. How empowering! So tell me about your project(s) with Emily Carr and how they came to be.
BG: My time with Emily Carr was extremely rewarding. I was commissioned to work with Sumac Ridge for the launch of one of their new wine labels, had a chance to work with Bob Rennie and the Rennie Collection in collaboration with the Union Gospel Mission to produce art for their new cafeteria which I ended up being the spokesperson for Emily Carr during that project. Most recently, I graduated and presented my grad piece at The Show, which has now become a continuing and well-received artwork…I have been exploring and referencing mandalas throughout my studies at Emily Carr as they best represent my worldly experiences-my grand psychosis. You see, I’m always going to be psychotic; now I just know how to live in the real world as one.
SM: Can you tell me more about the mandalas?
BG: Sure. Mandalas are cosmograms: maps of the universe. In Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies they are used for meditation to contact higher awareness, states of being or enlightenment. My project started as a series of ink drawings and moved to large-scale coloured geometric patterns resembling starburst. I remembered learning about an artist who used his blood to make statue busts of himself and it inspired me to think about my own identity, especially when my last course before grad was a Queer Theory course. I decided blood was the only way I could genuinely represent all of an individual in the truest form. I took on my grad project and constructed these blood mandalas, of myself and others. The project spoke to me and provided an opportunity to examine myself internally and see that all of my experiences could be brought to this one piece, this one place, with my own blood. It then also became my gift to others, to use their blood and create a portal from their reality, their DNA, and transcend the inner workings into the world of the spirit.
SM: So where are your mandalas now? And what’s next for Ben Garner?
BG: Until last week my mandalas were on display at the Windsor Gallery. I currently have three test tubes in my fridge of the blood of others, waiting to be transformed into a mandala. I plan to finish 8 more and present another showing in the weeks to come.Ater that we’ll see where things can go and until then, I’m continuing to follow this journey and am fixated on my [burgeoning] career as an artist.
After we finished our conversation, Ben showed me some of his works in progress as well as other abstract canvas art he has been working on. For more information or to follow Ben’s work find him at online and on Instagram.
Queer Film Festival: Must-Sees
26 years and still going strong, The Vancouver Queer Film Festival prides itself in presenting over 80 films ranging from Disco-themed coming of age stories to musicals about Grinder. As per usual, the film festival is jam-packed with stellar queer films interlaced with gala events and parties where you can brush shoulders with local filmmakers, or just have a few cocktails on the dance-floor. And if your bank-account is still in recovery-mode post-pride, there is a 2 films for $20 promo available online through the festival webpage.
Sad Mag has cruised the program for you, watched a shit-ton of trailers, and made some well-informed recommendations. Here are our QFF 2014 MUST-SEES:
QSong, the magic behind the Queer Arts Festival Closing Gala–TONIGHT!
Haircuts, seeds, and electricity: three topics I hadn’t expected to cover during last night’s interview about Queer Songwriters of a New Generation (QSONG), the song writing workshop debuting at this year’s Queer Arts Festival in Vancouver. Sarah Wheeler, one of two artists leading the project, tells me I should have seen it coming. I’m interviewing with a group of aspiring song-writers, after all; a few rogue metaphors are only to be expected.
Over the past 16-weeks, Wheeler and her co-mentor Melissa Endean have been leading free weekly drop-in sessions where queer, trans, and allied youth learned to write, record, and perform music professionally. As part of the workshop, students worked intensively with top professionals in their industry to develop their technical skills, creativity, and artistic confidence. By building lasting relationships with established queer songwriters like Wheeler and Endean, QSONG offered students a non-prejudicial space to grow as artists. For queer youth, student Vi Levitt explains, this is hugely important. “That kind of space,” Levitt feels, “doesn’t really exist for queer artists outside of situations like this.” Student Jude Bartlett agrees. “It’s a very open, supportive community,” she says, “everybody here stands on a common ground.”
Wrapping up the workshop, students will be headlining at tonight’s QAF closing party, Loud and Queer. When I ask what to expect from the show, Wheeler, Levitt, and Bartlett are unanimous: “It’s going to be amazing,” says Wheeler. “But, that’s performing,” she explains, “what makes you bullied in life makes you awesome on stage.”
See QSong performances at Loud & Queer, The Queer Arts Festival Closing Gala
Date: Saturday August 9, 2014
Time: 7:30 pm – 11:00 pm
Venue: Yaletown Roundhouse
Cost: $5 – $10 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds