Diyan Achjadi

The Contemporary Art Gallery is delighted to host the launch of Diyan Achjadi’s publication *Coming Soon!*, documenting the artist’s 2018-19 public art project for the City of Vancouver. *Coming Soon!* was a site-specific interrogation of questions of value, temporality and labour. Each month for the period of one year, Achjadi produced a series of hand-printed posters and installed them onto the structures surrounding construction sites throughout the city, mirroring the landscapes around new developments themselves. Over the course of that time the posters—hand-drawn and hand-printed through laborious processes of silkscreen, etching, lithography and polymer plate relief—accumulated and, left to the effects of the elements and actions of passersby, decayed, were transformed by graffiti and even removed.

In this live Zoom conversation, Achjadi reflects on the project with City of Vancouver Public Art Planner Tatiana Mellema and CAG Curator Kimberly Phillips. Copies of *Coming Soon!* are available for purchase now online here and in the gallery as of June 9. The full-colour, 200-page publication, which features essays by Achjadi and independent writer Zoë Chan, was designed in Vancouver by Victoria Lum. The first 50 purchasers of the book will also receive a special hand-printed poster, an artifact from the project itself.

*Coming Soon!* is a commission of the City of Vancouver Public Art Program.

### Biography 

Diyan Achjadi works in drawing, printmaking and animation. She received a BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art, New York and an MFA from Concordia University, Montreal. Achjadi has exhibited in galleries and film festivals internationally, including solo presentations at Centre MAI, Montreal; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; Oboro, Montreal; and AIR Gallery, New York, among others. In 2019 she was one of five participating artists in *How far do you travel?*, a major public art initiative organized by the Contemporary Art Gallery in partnership with TransLink. Born in Jakarta, Indonesia, Achjadi lives and works in Vancouver, and is an Associate Professor at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.


An image of an open page inside Diyan Achjadi's book, titled Coming Soon! Two photographs recording Achjadi's poster projects in the city are printed on the pages. 

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Diyan Achjadi: Coming Soon!

Publication Launch

In this unique artist talk, *How far do you travel?* exhibiting artist Diyan Achjadi will speak about the concerns that propel her practice aboard her wrapped bus as it tours through the city.




A graphic pattern made up of a purple, blue and green geometric background with various illustrations of buildings, swirling clouds, imaginary birds and plants superimposed on top.

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Achjadi_001.jpg

Talk

Throughout 2019, the Contemporary Art Gallery is producing a major public art initiative in partnership with TransLink, Metro Vancouver’s transportation authority. Five Canadian artists — Diyan Achjadi, Patrick Cruz, Rolande Souliere, Erdem Taşdelen and Anna Torma — were commissioned to graphically wrap the exterior of a series of articulated buses traveling on major routes throughout Vancouver. The nature of this project — public transit vehicles enveloped by visual imagery and traversing the space of the city — offers a lyrical opportunity to explore connections between images, meaning and movement. Buses and trains are not the only transit systems that we navigate in our everyday lives: visual images constantly transport ideas and meaning from one place to another. They link and organize histories, spaces and identities. They connect us with others. The English word commute is derived from the Latin *commutare*, which means to change or transform. Each of the five artists featured in this project has an artistic practice that is deeply attentive to the commute of visual language across time and space. This project asks “how far do you travel?”, a question that could well be posed to each rider on the bus, but also to the graphic imagery that Achjadi, Cruz, Souliere, Taşdelen and Torma use to interrogate how and why images move and communicate through time and place.

Curated by Kimberly Phillips, with assistance from Julia Lamare

This project is produced in partnership with TransLink.

ProgramGuideWinter2019.pdf

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An image of the exterior of a transit bus that is wrapped in a patterned vinyl. The vinyl pattern is made up of a purple and blue geometric background with various illustrations superimposed on top.

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An image of the exterior of a transit bus that is wrapped in a patterned vinyl. The vinyl pattern is made up of a plain pink background with abstract illustrations of various forms and shapes. 

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An image of the exterior of a transit bus wrapped in a patterned vinyl. The imagery on the vinyl resembles blueprint-like geometric shapes, composed of thin white lines on a dark blue background. 

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An image of the exterior of a transit bus that is wrapped in a patterned vinyl. The vinyl pattern is made up black pictographic imagery on a white background.   

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An image of the exterior of a transit bus wrapped in patterned vinyl. The pattern is composed of road work caution tape, with arrow-like shapes alternating from yellow and black to red and white.

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Diyan Achjadi, Patrick Cruz, Rolande Souliere, Erdem Taşdelen, Anna Torma

How far do you travel?

Diyan Achjadi
*The catch of a tiger*, 2019
silkscreen on paper
8.75 x 8.75 inches
Edition of 250 in four variations
Unframed

Diyan Achjadi’s artistic practice is concerned with print media’s fundamental role in the transit of knowledge throughout the world. Her work is a critical response to the cross-cultural influences, contaminations and fantastical imaginings that result from the colonial project. For many years she has been interested in how the decorative arts — particularly wallpapers, textiles and ceramics — are presumed to be innocent, ornamental backdrops to social life, but contain politically potent imagery that serves to perpetuate powerful assumptions around gender, race and nationhood. Extending from Achjadi’s participation in CAG’s major public art initiative, *How far do you travel?*, presented in partnership with TransLink aboard Vancouver buses throughout 2019, *The catch of a tiger* presents a swirling, riotous reconfiguration of traditional Chinoiserie plate design that depicts an imagined Indonesia — its landscapes, architecture and fauna, which with Achjadi’s deft printmaking skills seep outside their borders and boundaries.


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DiyanAchjadi_Catchofatiger-600x600.jpg

The catch of a tiger, 2019

*Coming Soon!* documents Diyan Achjadi’s 2018-19 public art project for the City of Vancouver. The project was a site-specific interrogation of questions of value, temporality and labour. Each month for the period of one year, Achjadi produced a series of hand-printed posters and installed them onto the structures surrounding construction sites throughout the city, mirroring the landscapes around new developments themselves. Over the course of that time the posters — hand-drawn and hand-printed through laborious processes of silkscreen, etching, lithography and polymer plate relief
 — accumulated and, left to the effects of the elements and actions of passersby, decayed, were transformed by graffiti and even removed.

This 200-page publication features essays by Achjadi and independent writer Zoë Chan, and was designed in Vancouver by Victoria Lum. The first 50 purchasers of the book will also receive one of seven hand-printed posters (randomly selected), artifacts from the project itself.

### Product notes
Please note that due to mailing restrictions we are unable to ship the poster. If you are able, please select the option to collect your online order from the gallery to receive both the publication and free poster. All shipments will include the publication only.


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