Melanie O'Brian

Zarmeene Shah

Kimberly Phillips

Jan-Erik Lundström

Althea Thauberger

In partnership with the [Art Gallery of Nova Scotia](https://www.artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/) and [Southern Alberta Art Gallery](https://www.saag.ca/), CAG is pleased to host an online launch for Althea Thauberger’s new publication, *The State of the Situation*. Please join us over Zoom for a conversation with the artist and all four contributors to the publication: Jan-Erik Lundström, Melanie O’Brian, Kimberly Phillips and Zarmeene Shah.

Through photography, film, video and performance, Althea Thauberger’s art practice is primarily concerned with the collaborative possibilities of the social documentary form. Her recent projects involve an extended engagement with the sites of their production in order to trace broader social and ideological histories. These sites include the Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital in Prague, Czech Republic; the former Rikard Benčić Factory in Rijeka, Croatia; the image holdings of the former National Film Board Still Image Division, now at the National Gallery of Canada; and the Capri Cinema in Saddar, Karachi, Pakistan. Her screenings and exhibitions include the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver (2019); National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2018); Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver (2018); the inaugural Karachi Biennale (2017); the 2012 Liverpool Biennale; the 17th Biennale of Sydney; La musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (2017); The Power Plant, Toronto (2012); Manifesta 7 (2008); The Berkeley Art Museum (2007); BAK, basis voor aktuele kunst, Utrecht (2007), among many others. Thauberger is represented by Susan Hobbs Gallery, Toronto.

### Biographies 

Jan-Erik Lundstrom is a curator, critic and historian of contemporary art and visual culture. He is the former director of the Sami Center of Contemporary Art, Kárášjohka, Norway; Bildmuseet, Umeå and of Fotografiska museet, Stockholm, Sweden. He is the chairman of the Paletten Art journal and of Skogen Art Space, and the former chairman of the Centre for Photography in Stockholm.. Among his curatorial projects are *Show Colour: Resist, Stand Up,  Advocate, Fall Back Spring Forward*; *Surviving the Future*; *The Map: Critical Cartographies*; *Politics of Place*; *Carlos Capelán: Only You and Society Must Be Defended* (1st Thessaloniki Biennial of Contemporary Art). He was the chief curator of Berlin Photography Festival and the artistic director of the 3rd Bucharest Biennale. He is the author and editor of many books, including Thinking Photography—Using Photography, Contemporary Sami Art and Design, Britta Marakatt-Labba: Embroidered Stories, Nordic Landscapes, Ursula Biemann: Mission Reports, and Irving Penn: Photographs, and he has published in journals such as Afterimage, Afterall, EIKON, European Photography, Glänta, Kunstpluss, and Tema Celeste. Lundström has contributed to major publications such as Horizons: Towards a Global Africa, The Oxford Companion to the Photograph and The History of European Photography of the 20th Century. Lundström has been a guest lecturer at Alvar Aalto University, Helsinki, Konstfackskolan and the Royal Art Academy, Stockholm, Malmö Art Academy, HISK, Antwerpen/Gent, Tarttu Art Academy, Estonia, Universidad de los Ándes, Bogotá, and Oslo Art Academy,  among others.

Melanie O’Brian is a curator and writer living on the unceded territories of xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh and Səl̓ílwəta Nations. She has organized exhibitions and offsite projects nationally and internationally that include the work of artists such as Richard Ibghy/Marilou Lemmens, Marianne Nicolson, Walid Raad, Hito Steyerl, and Althea Thauberger. She was Director/Curator of Simon Fraser University Galleries in Vancouver (2012-2020), Curator/Head of Programs at The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto (2011-2012), Director/Curator at Artspeak in Vancouver (2004-2011), and Assistant Curator at Vancouver Art Gallery (2001-2004). She is the editor of $5 Handshake: Art on Treaty 8 Territory (SFU Galleries, 2018), Omer Fast: 5,000 Feet is the Best (Henie Onstad Kunstsenter/The Power Plant/Sternberg, 2012) with Milena Hoegsberg; Stan Douglas: Entertainment (The Power Plant, 2011); Judgment and Contemporary Art Criticism (Artspeak/Fillip, 2010) with Jeff Khonsary; Vancouver Art and Economies (Arsenal Pulp Press/Artspeak, 2007), and has written for catalogues and magazines including Fillip , The Exhibitionist , Yishu and C . She occasionally teaches at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and Emily Carr University.

Kimberly Phillips is Director of SFU Galleries at Simon Fraser University. Over the past 15 years, in her roles as gallery director, curator, and teacher based on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓ əm, Skwxwú7mesh and səl̓ílwəta /Selilwitulh peoples, she has worked to amplify the voices of underacknowledged artists and practitioners, ethically vision and build organizational capacity, and create meaningful and unexpected ways for contemporary artists and their publics to find one another. From 2017-2020 she held the position of Curator at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, overseeing the gallery’s exhibitions, publications and artist residencies. Previous to this she served as Director/Curator of Access Gallery (2013-2017), a Vancouver artist-run centre committed to emergent and experimental practices. Phillips holds a PhD in art history from the University of British Columbia (2007), where she was an Izaak Walton Killam Doctoral Fellow.

Zarmeene Shah is an academic, and an independent curator and writer currently based in Karachi, Pakistan. Focusing on global contemporary art with specialist knowledge of the Global South, Shah’s research-based practice investigates ideas of power and control, geography and territory, rights and access. With an MA in Critical & Curatorial Studies from Columbia University as a Fulbright Scholar in 2010, Shah became one of Pakistan’s first professionally qualified curators. She has curated and been involved in the production of several notable and often large-scale exhibitions of contemporary art institutionally and independently, including *The Rising Tide: New Directions in Art From Pakistan* (2010), the 4th Cairo Video Festival (2011), the politically focused Parrhesia I & II shows (2011 & 2015), the Karachi Biennale (2017), Althea Thauberger’s *Pagal Pagal Pagal Pagal Filmy Dunya* (2017), and Madiha Aijaz’s *Memorial for the Lost Pages* at CAG Vancouver (2020). She has been Consultant for South Asian Art for CCA Derry-Londonderry (Northern Ireland), Assistant Director/Curator at the Mohatta Palace Museum (Karachi), and Curator-at-Large of the inaugural Karachi Biennale (KB17).


A cover of Althea Thauberger's book, titled The State of the Situation. It is black and has various quotes written in white.

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Althea Thauberger: The State of the Situation 

Publication Launch 

Erin Boniferro

For our fourth and final remote Open Studio with Erin Boniferro of Collage Collage, Erin leads us through an exploration of the gallery space; a place where artists, curators, program directors and others come together to bring artwork to the public.

Watch the video and follow along as Erin creates a mini gallery out of a cardboard box. She’ll share tips and tricks for creating a variety of mini artworks out of found objects and materials.

### Materials

- cardboard box or 3 pieces of cardboard
- scrap paper and magazines you can cut up to collage
- glue stick
- liquid white glue
- found and recycled objects (beads, pompoms, stickers, small containers, etc.)
- washable paint like tempera and paint brush
- scissors or box cutter
- tape (optional)
- assorted markers, pencils, pencil crayons or crayons

This activity is recommended for artists 4 years and up. Adult supervision is recommended for scissor work!

Share your mini galleries with us! [@CAGVancouver](https://www.instagram.com/cagvancouver/) [@CollageCollage](https://www.instagram.com/collagecollage/)


CAG X Collage Collage: Mini Galleries

Open Studio

Yasmine Haiboub

Sandra Semchuk

Charlene Vickers

Justine A. Chambers

Presented in partnership with [Art Toronto](https://arttoronto.balluun.com/en-us/widget-detail/329), this panel discussion brings together an intergenerational group of Vancouver-based artists to discuss their histories with community and collaborative practices, the circumstances that brought them to the city, and their current projects in a time of distancing. Moderated by Althea Thauberger, this conversation includes Justine A. Chambers, Yasmine Haiboub, Sandra Semchuk, and Charlene Vickers.

### Watch Online

Watch the panel discussion for free online [here](https://vimeo.com/471945599/1a0beeb71b)

### Biographies 

Justine A. Chambers is a dance artist living and working on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. In her work she privileges what is felt over what is seen, by working with her body as an imperfect recording device to develop a cumulative embodied archive. Recent choreographic projects have been presented at Contemporary Art Gallery (2020), Sophiensaele (2019), Artspeak (2019), Hong Kong Arts Festival (2019), Art Museum at University of Toronto (2018), the Vancouver Art Gallery (2018), Agora de la Danse (2017), Festival of New Dance (2017), Canada Dance Festival (2016), Dancing on the Edge (2015), Dance in Vancouver (2013, 2015, 2019), and The Western Front (2013). Chambers is Max Tyler-Hite’s mother.

Yasmine Haiboub is an artist, facilitator and curator currently based in Vancouver, the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. She is completing her BFA at Emily Carr University, where she received an Award for Community Engagement. She also co-founded Ground Floor Art Centre. Yasmine’s practice is interdisciplinary and focuses on community engagement and sculptural works. She engages with her immediate surroundings through performative gestures, interactive sculptures and mass accumulation of familiar objects, creating new narratives in public and private spaces. Yasmine is mainly concerned with creating intersectionality through self-awareness, care, hospitality, and self-proclaimed authority.

Sandra Semchuk is a photographer, writer and Governor General’s Award recipient in Visual and Media Arts. She is a storyteller who uses the familial, autobiography and dialogue as the basis for recognition and identity across generations, cultures and species. She collaborated with her late husband James Nicholas, Rock Cree writer and orator to disrupt myths that have shaped settler relations to First Nations. Her book, *The Stories Were Not Told: Canada’s First World War Internment Camps* (U of Alberta Press, 2018) considers legislated racism and the intergenerational consequences of Canada’s first internment camps when so many from the Austro-Hungarian, German and Ottoman Empires were interned.

Althea Thauberger is an artist, filmmaker and educator known for place-based social documentary projects involving collaborative research and production. The final works — films, videos, audio recordings, and photographs — are reflections on local histories and sociopolitical power dynamics, including ones involved in the production process itself. Thauberger currently has a solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, and has recently shown her work at the Art Gallery of Southern Alberta in Lethbridge, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in Halifax, and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

Charlene Vickers is an Anishnabe artist based in Vancouver. Her painting, sculpture and performance works explore memory, healing and embodied connections to ancestral lands. Charlene is the recipient of the 2018 VIVA Award. Recent solo exhibitions include SFU Galleries (2018), aceartinc (2017) and Artspeak (2015), with a forthcoming solo project at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. Recent group exhibitions include Portland Art Museum (2019); Oakville Galleries (2018); Art Museum at the University of Toronto (2018); Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe (2017); Pataka Art Museum, New Zealand (2016); and the Vancouver Art Gallery (2016). She graduated from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (1994) and Simon Fraser University (BA, 1998; MFA, 2013).

### Relevant links

Justine A. Chambers and Laurie Young, One Hundred More
[tanzforumberlin.de/en/production/one-hundred-more/](https://www.tanzforumberlin.de/en/production/one-hundred-more/)

Ground Floor Art Centre, co-founded by Yasmine Haiboub
[groundfloorac.info/about](http://groundfloorac.info/about)

Portrait of Sandra Semchuk
[youtube.com/watch?v=OWK_4kNb-cE](
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OWK_4kNb-cE)

Sandra Semchuk and James Nicholas, Taking off Skins 
[themedicineproject.com/sandra-semchuk-james-nicholas.html](http://themedicineproject.com/sandra-semchuk-james-nicholas.html)

Charlene Vickers and Neil Eustache, Cool Indians on Main Street
[grunt.ca/cool-indians-on-main-street](http://grunt.ca/cool-indians-on-main-street/)

Charlene Vickers and Marian Hupfield,  Jingles and Sounds for Speaking to Our Grandmothers
[mariahupfield.wordpress.com/2018/08/03/massive-jingle-seattle-art-fair](http://mariahupfield.wordpress.com/2018/08/03/massive-jingle-seattle-art-fair)


Working together apart: Collaborative practices in Vancouver

Talk 

Deanna Bowen

Presented by the [Vancouver Heritage Foundation](https://www.tickettailor.com/events/vancouverheritagefoundation/424893), join Deanna Bowen for a discussion of the artist’s large-scale public artwork, *Night Prowl* (2019), which features the extinguished neon light of the Blue Sky dance club, a hub of Black nightlife in 1950s Vancouver. *Night Prowl* is an extension of Bowen’s recent work mapping the history of a Black entertainment community in Vancouver, much of which has been erased from the city’s physical fabric and collective memory, but continues to exist as traces in archives. Bowen will be joined by CAG Acting Associate Curator Julia Lamare.

### Biography 

Deanna Bowen is a Toronto-based interdisciplinary artist whose work has been exhibited across North America, including at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Royal Ontario Museum of Art, Toronto; the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, and the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. She has received several awards in support of her artistic practice including Canada Council New Chapter and Ontario Arts Council Media Arts production grants, a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2014 William H. Johnson Prize.


A black and white image of a film frame depicting an unlit neon sign and street light at night. The neon sign reads “DANC BLUE SKY.” Black circles cover the surface of the image. 

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Talk

For our third remote Open Studio with Erin Boniferro of [Collage Collage](https://shop.collagecollage.ca/), Erin leads us through a puppet making activity inspired by Julian Yi-Zhong Hou’s multisensory *Grass Drama*. From pattern to music to performance, Julian’s work brings together multiple elements to create connections between unlikely things and ideas.

Watch the video and follow along as Erin creates a puppet out of paper and cardboard. She’ll share tips and tricks for creating your own unique, layered patterns with wax crayons and watercolour paints.

### Materials

- coloured paper
- glue stick
- tape
- cardboard (corrugated works well)
- dowel stick (optional)
- scissors
- watercolour paints
- wax crayons or pastels
- markers, pencils, pencil crayons (optional)

This activity is recommended for artists 3 years and up. Adult supervision is recommended for scissor work!

Share your puppets with us! [@CAGVancouver](https://www.instagram.com/cagvancouver/) [@CollageCollage](https://www.instagram.com/collagecollage/)


CAG X Collage Collage: Pattern Puppets 

Gabi Dao

Christian Vistan

We are pleased to announce our latest installment of CAG Reads, a book club where artists invite us to read alongside them. Each month an artist proposes a text for our collective reading pleasure, culminating in a virtual hangout where the artist leads a wide-ranging discussion grounded in their chosen reading material. 

This October, CAG Reads will be hosted by Gabi Dao and Christian Vistan. 

Gabi Dao is an artist and co-organizer at Duplex, a DIY project space and studio collective based on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. Her interdisciplinary practice insists on counter-memory, intimacy, hyphenation, multiple truths, and blurred temporalities through the pursuit of sculpture, installation, moving image, and sound. She has shown her work throughout Canada and internationally, with recent exhibitions at Audain Gallery SFU, Images Festival and the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands. 

Christian Vistan is an artist originally from the peninsula known as Bataan, Philippines. His work and projects have been presented locally and internationally at Artspeak, Centre A, and Nanaimo Art Gallery in Canada; mild climate and Atlanta Contemporary in the United States; and Kamias Triennial in the Philippines. He lives and works the unceded ancestral territories of the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam) and sc̓əwaθən məsteyəxʷ (Tsawwassen) Nations.

Dao and Vistan have chosen two readings, both available online. [*The Year I Stopped Making Art. Why the art world should assist artists beyond representation: in solidarity*](https://documentations.art/The-year-I-stopped-making-art) (2020) is an open letter written by the artist Paul Maheke at the onset of the pandemic, one that questions the precarity many artists must face by participating within the art system. 

Their second selection, also inspired by the pandemic, is [*The Team*](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/07/magazine/tommy-orange-short-story.html) (2020), a short story written by Pulitzer-finalist and MacDowell Fellow Tommy Orange. 

Please follow these links to read [*The Year I Stopped Making Art. Why the art world should assist artists beyond representation: in solidarity*](https://documentations.art/The-year-I-stopped-making-art) and [*The Team*](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/07/magazine/tommy-orange-short-story.html) for free online.

Trigger Warning: There are references to incidents of sexual and physical violence and abuse towards racialized bodies in Paul Maheke’s text.


A photograph of a large mirror placed outside. A drawing of a person's face is attached to the top of the mirror. The reflection on the mirror shows people getting haircuts. 

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Gabi Dao and Christian Vistan present Paul Maheke and Tommy Orange

CAG Reads

For our second remote Open Studio with Erin Boniferro of [Collage Collage](https://shop.collagecollage.ca/), Erin shows us how materials found around the house can be used to make a diorama inspired by Althea Thauberger’s *Pagal Pagal Pagal Pagal Filmy Duniya*, a film that explores community in and around a cinema house in Karachi, Pakistan.

Watch the video and follow along as Erin creates a three-dimensional diorama of a theatre out of a simple box. She’ll share tips and tricks for using paper, found images and other collage materials to bring your diorama to life.

Gather the materials below at home to get started.


### Materials

- card stock or heavy paper
- collage images (magazines, newspaper)
- glue
- additional construction or scrap paper
- box (shoebox works well)
- wooden people
- scissors
- markers, crayon, pencil crayon
- paint (optional)
- sequins, buttons, string, pipe cleaners (optional)

This activity is recommended for artists 5 years and up. Adult supervision is recommended for scissor work!

Share your dioramas with us! [@CAGVancouver](https://www.instagram.com/cagvancouver/) [@CollageCollage](https://www.instagram.com/collagecollage/)



CAG X Collage Collage: Theatre Diorama

To launch a book spanning 18 years of his practice, Kevin Schmidt will be performing a set of songs that function as an artist talk in the Kamloops Art Gallery studios, offered via live-stream on the Contemporary Art Gallery and Kamloops Art Gallery Facebook pages.

For those interested in a face-to-face experience, the Kamloops Art Gallery has a limited number of seats available. Reserve yours by calling the Gallery at +1 250 377 2400.

The Kamloops Art Gallery and the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, co-produced the 192-page monograph on Schmidt’s work, published by Black Dog, featuring texts by Charo Neville and Kathleen Ritter, as well as an interview between Schmidt and Nigel Prince. Copies of the publication are available to purchase in store at both galleries or online.

Schmidt has presented solo exhibitions both at the Kamloops Art Gallery from October to January 2015, and at the Contemporary Art Gallery from March to June, 2014.

### Biography

Kevin Schmidt’s art practice engages in a critical re-staging of spectacle through the reproduction and displacement of cultural industry, and proposes a utopian assertion of the commons where both the land and culture are publicly available. Involving grueling feats of production and “self-built” construction, Schmidt’s works are often produced in remote locations, where he stages events through the relocation of common features of the urban environment (billboard, block-buster film, rock-show lights) into seemingly untouched areas. Through this cross-over, he interrogates the intrinsic interconnection of “nature” and “culture,” and explores the congruence between contemporary art and do-it-yourself (DIY) practices in relation to the role of the museum and the notion of shared knowledge.




An image of an open page in Kevin Schmidt's monograph. The photograph printed on the page records the house decorated with holiday lights at night. 

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Kevin Schmidt 2.jpg

Kevin Schmidt

Publication Launch and Performance

For our first remote Open Studio with Erin Boniferro of [Collage Collage](https://shop.collagecollage.ca/), Erin shows us how materials found around the house can be used to make colourful collages inspired by the work of Madiha Aijaz and her videos and photographs featuring spaces and places in Karachi, Pakistan.

Watch the video and follow along as Erin creates a mystery room from scrap materials. She’ll show you how to layer found images with drawings, paper and other everyday supplies to create a space of your own making.
Gather the materials below at home to get started.

### Materials

- construction paper
- scrap paper, wrapping paper
- magazines you can cut up (home design magazines work well)
- markers, crayons and/or pencil crayons
- scissors
- glue stick
- washable paint (optional)

This activity is recommended for artists 3 years and up.

Share your collages with us! [@CAGVancouver](https://www.instagram.com/cagvancouver/) [@CollageCollage](https://www.instagram.com/collagecollage/)


CAG X Collage Collage: A Mystery Room Collage

Hannah Jickling

Helen Reed

We are pleased to announce our August installment of CAG Reads, a book club where artists invite us to read alongside them. Each month an artist proposes a book for our collective reading pleasure, culminating in a virtual hangout where the artist leads a wide-ranging discussion grounded in their chosen reading material. 

This edition of CAG Reads will be hosted by artists Hannah Jickling and Helen Reed. Since 2006, Reed and Jickling have collaborated on projects that span photography, video, public installations and printed matter, as well as intergenerational research projects such as the ongoing *Big Rock Candy Mountain*. Jickling and Reed have exhibited and performed widely, with both individual and collaborative work appearing in venues such as the Portland Art Museum, The Power Plant, Smack Mellon and the Vancouver Art Gallery. In 2017 they released *Multiple Elementary* (YYZBOOKS), a publication that explores the elementary school classroom as a site of invention and reception of contemporary art practices. 

For this month’s installment, Reed and Jickling have chosen the novel *Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl* (2017) by Andrea Lawlor. Set in 1993, Paul Polydoris is a young, queer shapeshifter who transforms his body and gender at will as he crosses the country in an adventure filled with pleasure, connection and loss. Focusing on the musical references that appear throughout the novel, Jickling and Reed will pair selections from the book with a playlist of songs for an online listening party.

### Getting the book

As this event explores* Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl* through music, it’s OK if you haven’t read the book! For those who are interested in picking up a copy, here in Vancouver, both [Massy Books](https://www.massybooks.com/) and [Pulp Fiction](http://pulpfictionbooksvancouver.com/) are happy to order copies for you. Massy Books is offering the book for $23.99 +GST (7-day order window). Pulp Fiction is offering the book at $16.07 + GST (10- to 14-day order window).


A cover of a book titled "Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl" by Andrea Lawlor. It is pink and shows a face of a person. 

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Hannah Jickling and Helen Reed present Andrea Lawlor

Erica Stocking

Karilynn Ming Ho

Hyung-Min Yoon

Kit Liu

Contemporary Art Practices: Visual Arts Summer Intensive is a three-week full scholarship program for young artists aged 15 to 19. Hosted by [Arts Umbrella](https://www.artsumbrella.com/programs/art/scholarship-programs/visual-art-summer-intensive/) and the Contemporary Art Gallery, the course supports participants in developing an art practice that critically engages with the world around them.

*In this space* showcases the individual artworks of the program’s 2020 cohort, both here online and as printed matter available for free at either at CAG’s bookshop or Arts Umbrella. Rather than gathering in a communal studio environment, participants worked this year via video discussions from home, exploring with guest artists the broad theme of art and everyday life. Responding collectively to the current global state under the COVID-19 pandemic, the participants’ final projects reflect on the familiar environments—physical and otherwise—we often take for granted.

### Participating Artists

Deborah Yang, Adrienne Neufeld, Grey Jones, Emily Munro, Simon Tanglao, Natalia Patola Moosmann, Christine Kuo, Sarah Pullen

### Facilitating Artists

Hyung-Min Yoon and Kit Liu

### Guest Artists

Erica Stocking and Karilynn Ming Ho

### Organized by

Roxanne Gagnon, Danielle Green, Jocelyn Sanchez


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Visual Arts Summer Intensive 2020

In this space

Marina Roy

We are pleased to announce our third installment of CAG Reads, a book club where artists invite us to read alongside them. Each month an artist proposes a book for our collective reading pleasure, culminating in a virtual hangout where the artist leads a wide-ranging discussion grounded in their chosen reading material. 

This July, CAG Reads will be hosted by artist and educator Marina Roy. Cross-disciplinary in scope, Roy’s work investigates the intersections between materials, history, language, and the grotesque. She is particularly interested in exploring the need for posthuman and nonhuman perspectives. Her work has been exhibited by the Vancouver Art Gallery, Artspeak, Or Gallery, and Will Aballe Art Projects, amongst other venues, and her book *sign after the X* was published by Arsenal Pulp Press in 2001. Roy is Associate Professor in the department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory at the University of British Columbia. This fall, her new book *Queuejumping* will be released by Information Office. 

For this month’s installment, Roy has chosen the novel *Bina* (2019) by Anakana Schofield. Bina explores aging, illness and male manipulation through its titular character, a 74-year old woman accused of a crime so serious she cannot even talk about it directly. Described by Schofield as a “story told through warnings,” this novel follows Schofield’s award-winning predecessors, *Malarky* (2013) and *Martin John* (2015). 

### Getting the book

For our local participants, an audiobook copy of *Bina* can be found [here](https://vpl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/6690623038) through the Vancouver Public Library.

For readers interested in picking up a copy, here in Vancouver both [Massy Books](https://www.massybooks.com/) and [Pulp Fiction](http://pulpfictionbooksvancouver.com/) have reopened and are available to order *Bina* ($14.70 + tax)


A cover of a book titled Anakana Schofield. On a white background, the capital letter b and the small letters: i, n, and a are printed. 

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Marina Roy presents Anakana Schofield

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

Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill

We’re delighted to announce the second installment of CAG Reads, a book club where artists invite us to read alongside them. Each month an artist proposes a book for our collective reading pleasure, culminating in a virtual hangout where the artist leads a wide-ranging discussion grounded in their chosen reading material.

For our June installment, we’re pleased to welcome Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, a Metis artist and writer who lives and works on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. Hill’s sculptural practice explores the history of found materials to enquire into concepts of land, property, and economy. Her work has shown at Unit 17, Polygon Gallery, and the Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery in Vancouver; the Alberta Art Gallery in Edmonton; SBC galerie d’art contemporain in Montreal; and STRIDE Gallery in Calgary. Hill is a member of BUSH gallery, an Indigenous artist collective that seeks to challenge Eurocentric art models, and to centre the land and Indigenous epistemologies.

For this month’s CAG Reads, L’Hirondelle Hill has selected a suite of short texts: *Tony’s Story* (1981) by  Leslie Marmon Silko, *Against the Police* (2007) by Miguel James (translated by Guillermo Parra) and *The Author of the Acacia Seeds* (1982) by Ursula k. Le Guin. Each of these texts explore rebellion, refusal and opposition—to the state, in art and otherwise.

### Getting the books

Please follow these links to read [*Against the Police*](http://www.typomag.com/issue18/james.html), [*Tony’s Story*](https://ndla.no/en/subjects/subject:39/topic:1:188693/topic:1:188701/resource:1:20439) and [*The Author of the Acacia Seeds*](https://xenoflesh.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/ursula-k.-le-guin.pdf) for free online.

For readers interested in picking up Leslie Marmon Silko’s *Storyteller* (1981) or Ursula Le Guin’s *The Compass Rose* (1982), both [Massy Books](https://www.massybooks.com/reopening/) and [Pulp Fiction](http://pulpfictionbooksvancouver.com/) are continuing to receive orders and offer pick up services. Massy Books is generously offering a 20% discount for all CAG Reads participants ordering Storyteller. We also encourage participants to explore the eBook and audiobook catalogues available through their local libraries.


A portrait photograph of Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill standing in front of a bush. Hill is wearing a red shirt and purple bottoms. 

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Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill presents Leslie Marmon Silko, Miguel James and Ursula K. Le Guin

Taran Kootenhayoo

Beric Manywounds

Jade Baxter

Marja Helander

Maria-Margaretta

Emily Dundas Oke

This June we’re pleased to present *Luminous Territories*, a series of films screened online that explore the sovereignty of storytelling as told by artists Beric Manywounds, Marja Helander, Jade Baxter and Taran Kootenhayoo. Hosted collaboratively by CAG and The Cinematheque, the screening is accompanied by a recorded panel discussion wherein artists and curators further explore the potentials and possibilities of film, and how sensibilities of place are incorporated into their work.

Exploring the intersections between land and memory, and questioning the worlds carried and contained with embodied practices, each of the films included in *Luminous Territories* contemplate how the sovereignty of storytelling arises in our day to day life through embodied articulations, dance or DIY culture.

Curated by Emily Dundas Oke and Maria-Margaretta

Accompanying this screening is a panel discussion between filmmakers Beric Manywounds, Jade Baxter and Taran Kootenhayoo, along with independent curator Maria-Margaretta, independent curator (and former FPCC Indigenous Curatorial Assistant at CAG) Emily Dundas Oke and Danielle Green, CAG’s Curator of Learning and Public Engagement.

This event is organized by the Contemporary Art Gallery in collaboration with The Cinematheque. 

### Films

Beric Manywounds
*Tsanizid*, 2019
6:10 minutes

Marja Helander
*Birds in the Earth*, 2018
10:40 minutes

Jade Baxter
*Beyond Hope*, 2016
10:44 minutes

Taran Kootenhayoo
*D.I.Y*, 2019
5 Minutes

### Biographies 

Beric Manywounds is a Two Spirit writer, filmmaker and intermedia performance artist from the Tsuut’ina Nation of Treaty 7. Having a background predominantly in film and video, Beric has been creating filmic narratives since graduating from Capilano University’s Indigenous Independent Digital Filmmaking Program in 2010. Taking a special interest in the genres of fantasy, horror and magical realism, Beric’s films reflect an exploration of post trauma consciousness and spiritual transformation. Currently based in Montreal (Tiohtià:ke) and enrolled in the Intermedia Cyber Arts program at Concordia University, Beric is now giving shape and form to their futurist visions of Indigenous performance art and decolonized gender in creating new works hybridizing performative video, contemporary dance, cinema, and theatre.

Marja Helander is a Finnish photographic and video artist. She graduated from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki in 1999. Her earlier work explored her own identity between the Finnish and the Sámi culture. Helander’s recent photographic work has focused on Northern landscape. The accent of the work is on postcolonial topics in the Sámi area, focusing particularly on the global mining industry. The encounter between nature and mankind is not harmonious, but destructive. On the other hand, her video works are playful, exploring the contradiction between the traditional Sámi way of life and modern society. Her recent short film *Birds in the Earth* won the Risto Jarva Prize and the main prize of the National Competition at Tampere Film Festival 2018. Marja Helander has participated in solo and group exhibitions and her works have been acquired for various public collections in Finland and abroad.

Jade Baxter is from the Nlaka’pamux Nation. With a focus on independent filmmaking, Jade is an interdisciplinary artist with skills and experience in film, community organizing, and fishing. Currently co-hosting cinema evenings with filmmaker Justin Ducharme. A fellow of the Hot Docs Documentary Accelerator Lab, Director Mentee on *The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open* (Dir. Elle-Máijá Apiniskim Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn), a member of Experimental Media Outsiders Collective, TESTIFY Indigenous Art + Law Collective, and an ongoing Artist in Residence at Skwachays Lodge. Her short documentary *Occupation of Memory* has screened as part of DOXA, Imaginative, RIDM, Talking Stick, and in community screenings across Canada.

Taran Kootenhayoo is a Denesułįné and Stoney Nakoda multi-disciplinary storyteller from Treaty 6 territory, AB. He currently pays rent in Vancouver on the unceded and unsurrendered territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. He has written and co-written over six plays and one screenplay since graduating from Capilano University’s Acting for Stage and Screen program in 2015. He is signed with Premiere Talent Management and is a member of Full Circle’s First Nation Performance Ensemble. Taran has been awarded Star to Watch at the Whistler Film Festival (2018) and the Sam Payne’s Most Promising Newcomer award at the Jessie Theatre Awards (2019). Taran has the pleasure to work closely with Savage Society to help create his curious comedy, White Noise, which will be world premiering at the Fire Hall Arts Centre. He wrote and directed *D.I.Y* with the help of Telus STORYHIVE. Other credits include: *Molly of Denali*, *Only Drunks and Children Tell the Truth*, *Iron Peggy*, *Th’woxiya: The Hungry Feast Dish*, *Red Patch*, *The Cure for Death by Lightning*, *Bella Ciao!*, *Salmon Girl*, *The Battle of the Birds*, and *The Boy Who Was Abandoned*.

Maria-Margaretta is a multidisciplinary Red River Métis artist from treaty 6 Saskatoon Saskatchewan, currently living on the stolen territory of Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations. Utilizing traditional beadwork practice merged with contemporary mediums she considers how this duality serves as both an act of reclamation and commentary on cultural hybridity.  Navigating Indigeneity through the lenses of both the settler and the settled Maria-Margaretta attempts to negotiate her sense of self through the implications of existing in a colonial system. Using Métis identity as a place of transformation she questions how memory, personal experience, and ancestral relations influences her understanding of self.

Emily Dundas Oke is an interdisciplinary artist and curator. A recipient of numerous grants and awards, she has exhibited nationally and internationally. Emily has been an artist in residence in such places as Nida Art Colony and Access Gallery, among others. She is currently organizer and co-curator of the Indigenous Brilliance reading and performance series and has held positions at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver and the Kamloops Art Gallery. She is Nehiyaw, Métis, Scottish, and English and is currently cyber-connecting from the lands of the Secwepemc people.



A still image from Beric Manywounds's film titled Tsanizid (Wake Up). Several animal-like shaped black objects are flowing around the full moon at night. 

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8. Tsanizid (Wake Up) Beric Manywounds.jpg

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1.Jade Baxter.jpg

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Birds-in-the-Earth.jpg

Luminous Territories

Indigenous Screening & Discussion

Leisure (Meredith Carruthers & Susannah Wesley)

For our first installment of CAG Reads, we’re pleased to welcome Leisure, the collaborative art practice of Susannah Wesley and Meredith Carruthers, who were recently featured in the *The Artist’s Studio is her Bedroom*. Since 2004, Carruthers and Wesley have engaged with social and historical narratives surrounding women artists in the 20th century, as well as creativity and its relationship to pedagogy. Leisure has produced exhibitions and special projects in collaboration with venues across Canada and abroad, and participated in residencies in Banff, Dawson City, Haliburton, and Vienna. 

For the inaugural CAG Reads title, Leisure has selected Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s *Herland* (1915). The second novella in Gilman’s utopian trilogy, *Herland* is the story of an isolated all-female society that is thrown into disorder by three male explorers. Delivered with wry humour, this work of early feminist science-fiction explores questions of gender roles, privacy, motherhood and individuality. 


### Getting the book

*Herland* can be legally downloaded [here](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32/32-h/32-h.htm) free of charge. For those of you who prefer to hold an actual book in your hands, *Herland* can also be ordered from your local bookseller. Here in Vancouver, both [Massy Books](https://www.massybooks.com/) and [Pulp Fiction Books](http://pulpfictionbooksvancouver.com/) are continuing to receive orders and offer delivery and pick-up services. If ordering from Pulp Fiction, mention that you’re ordering for CAG Reads and they will give you a 30% discount on the publication. We also encourage participants to explore the ebook and audiobook catalogues available through their local libraries.


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Leisure presents Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Due to Erica Stocking’s play being canceled as a result of COVID-19, the artist has proposed an alternative way of connecting in this moment, presenting an open rehearsal of the play which will take place via an audio conference call and available for listeners to dial in.

The work is presented by Erica Stocking in collaboration with Kara Uzelman, Tabitha Osler, Sydney Hermant, Shyla Seller, Justine A. Chambers, Alexa Mardon, Alison Denham, Rianne Svelnis, Kaia Shukin, Daisy Thompson, Amber Barton, Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, HaeAhn Kwon, Julie Morstad, Christy Nyiri, and the Contemporary Art Gallery.

*The Artist’s Studio is Her Bedroom: A choreographic statement on autobiographical art making* is a framework for exploring the contemporary condition of attention/distraction through an experience of motherhood. By evoking this particular experience as a form to be inhabited, Stocking explores how we can be both autonomous and non-autonomous subjects within a network. As an iterative process, the artwork is working, breathing, being, offering a space for collective inhabitation. In our intensified political and ecological moment, how do we be together amidst spatial and temporal distances?

Following the old avant-garde call for the collapsing of art and life often found within artistic practices at key moments in history, *The Artist’s Studio Is Her Bedroom: A choreographed statement of autobiographical art-making* responds to our intensified political and ecological moment by exploring the potential of art to offer both political and private relevance.

The play offers a framework to inhabit a grammar of motherhood which reflects a contemporary condition of oscillation between attention and distraction. Stocking proposes artwork as an organism that moves in the world, an organism to inhabit within the world, and an organism as a fiction to understand the world.

Inspiration for the costumes comes from WWI when the allies began to paint their ships in dazzle – a pseudo-science camouflage previously untested in the field, whereby painting bold patterns on the ship exterior made it difficult to confirm the depth of field or direction the ship was moving in with accuracy, leading to miscalculations of the ship’s anticipated position and thus protecting the ship from U-boat attacks. This work was mostly done by women and artists, and is utilized as a context to don while navigating womanhood now.

Feel free to listen, or participate by following along with the action [here](http://www.ericastocking.com/march-24th-7pm).

The stage directions will be read including the titles of the acts, and you can orient yourself using the index provided [here](https://cag-cms-cdn.sfo3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/strapi-uploads/9a8351dd293a56fcf8fe03e83fbe87e4.pdf).


An image of a stage set framed by theatre curtains with brown curtains in the background. On stage is a set of a bedroom containing a bed, carpets, a small table, a room divider, and lounge chair.

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Erica Stocking: The Artist’s Studio Is Her Bedroom: a choreographed statement of autobiographical art making

Performance

Damla Tamer

Exhibiting artist Damla Tamer engages with the marks in her exhibition works while speaking to the audience in a semi-spontaneous monologue to explore questions of ethics of care, relation, production, and reproduction within our current temporal framework.

### Biography 

Damla Tamer is a visual artist born in Istanbul, Turkey and currently practicing in Vancouver. She has received grants and prizes, including the Andrew MacIntosh Memorial Book Prize in Fine Arts from University of British Columbia’s Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory, and has participated in artist residencies and exhibitions in Canada, Turkey and Europe, including a two-year residency at Borusan Art Center in Istanbul (2008-2009). Her work has been the focus of solo exhibitions at Darling Foundry, Montreal (2013) and the fifty fifty arts collective, Victoria (2018).  She is a member of the artist-run Dynamo Arts Association and the Vancouver-based artist mothers collective A.M. (Art Mamas). She has taught at various academic institutions including the University of British Columbia, UBC Okanagan and Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

This event was canceled due to COVID-19. 


A detail of Damla Tamer's artwork. It is a weaving of black and white printed paper. 

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In her new durational work, *And then this also* (2020), exhibiting artist Justine A. Chambers explores issues of distraction, adrenaline, time and care as a working mother and artist. She will perform in the gallery intermittently until 3 pm.

### Biography

Justine A. Chambers is a dance artist living and working on the unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. In her work she privileges what is felt over what is seen, by working with her body as an imperfect recording device to develop a cumulative embodied archive. Recent choreographic projects have been presented at Sophiensaele, Berlin (2019); Nanaimo Art Gallery (2019); Artspeak, Vancouver (2019); Hong Kong Arts Festival (2019); Art Museum at University of Toronto (2018); Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery at Haverford College, Philadelphia (2018); the Vancouver Art Gallery (2018); Burrard Arts Foundation (2018). Agora de la Danse, Montreal (2017), Festival of New Dance (2017); Mile Zero Dance Society (2017); Canada Dance Festival (2016); Dancing on the Edge (2015); Dance in Vancouver (2013, 2015, 2019;) and The Western Front (2013). Chambers is Max Tyler-Hite’s mother.


An image of Justine A. Chambers performing choreography in a gallery space. Chambers is wearing a silver jumpsuit. 

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Join us to take part in an open, informal reading of Erica Stocking’s script *The Artist’s Studio is Her Bedroom: a choreographed statement on autobiographical art making* within the exhibition installation.


An image of a white bed foregrounding a projector screen. The screen shows the image of a stage set. On stage is a set of a bedroom containing a bed, carpets, a small table, a room divider, and a lounge chair.

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The Artist's Studio is Her Bedroom

Read-Through

A detail of various-shaped white ceramic vases sparsely placed on a white plinth. 

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Brady Cranfield

Maura Doyle

Claire Greenshaw

Steven Brekelmans

Annie MacDonell

Join all ten exhibiting artists in an informal conversation about how artistic practices can be carved out of unlikely times and spaces, and how generative questions arise from constraints.

The Artist’s Studio is Her Bedroom

Artist’s Roundtable

On select Saturday afternoons throughout the exhibition season, participants are invited to drop in to activate artist duo Leisure’s installation, *Conversations with Magic Forms*. Using plaster and other materials provided, children and visitors will make cast objects in sand, exploring the relationship between negative and positive space. Children are encouraged to create as active participants in the work, both through their making and, if they choose to leave their objects on the artwork plinths, as exhibiting artists.

These activities are free and open to participants of all ages. Drop in anytime between 12pm and 3pm. Children are encouraged to participate.

All materials are provided. No experience is necessary.


Sand is piled against a V-shaped plinth on a gallery floor. Lining the top of the plinth are small colourful sculptures. Behind a large black & white vinyl print of a photo collage hangs on the wall. 

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Leisure: Conversations with Magic Forms

Workshop

Nicole Preissl

Valeen Jules

Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour

Maika‘i Tubbs

Join us for a conversation between artists Valeen Jules, Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour, Nicole Preissl, and Maika‘i Tubbs with intersecting interests in land, language and futurity. This dialogue aims to engage in generative discussion towards sites of possible resurgence, centering prominent concerns within the practices of Indigenous artists based here and elsewhere.

Organized by the Contemporary Art Gallery and the Burnaby Art Gallery and hosted at the Native Education College.

### Related Exhibition

[*echoes*](https://www.burnaby.ca/things-to-do/arts-and-heritage/burnaby-art-gallery.html)
Burnaby Art Gallery


A photographic image of several roles of hemp ropes placed on a gray flat surface. 

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Valeen Jules, Jeffrey McNeil-Seymour, Nicole Preissl,and Maika‘i Tubbs: Echoes & Reflections

Sreshta Rit Premnath

Avram Alpert

Join us for a conversation between artist Sreshta Rit Premnath and writer Avram Alpert on Premnath’s artistic practice and new publication produced by CAG. The talk will be followed by a reception and publication launch at READ Books.

The word “knot” describes a difficult problem, a fastening, or an uncomfortable mass, tightness or tension. Sreshta Rit Premnath charts his artistic practice through the multiple definitions of this term: it is a making-visible of knots. The artist’s solo exhibition, Those Who Wait, at the Contemporary Art Gallery—his first in Canada—offered an occasion to consider the particular knots that have bound his practice for the past six years: the contradiction between the occupation and ownership of space, and the conditions of visibility and mis-recognition that define migrant experience. Drawing a line through a series of material, conceptual and written propositions articulated across numerous exhibition projects, and punctuated by astute contributions by US-based critical theory scholar Avram Alpert and Brazilian writer and curator Tiago de Abreu Pinto, this book offers an archive of these investigations.

### Biographies 

Sreshta Rit Premnath is a multidisciplinary artist and the founder and co-editor of the publication Shifter. His work has been the focus of solo exhibitions at Rodriguez Gallery, Poznan (2019); Ace Gallery, Los Angeles (2017); Nomas Foundation, Rome (2017); Kansas Gallery, New York (2014); Gallery SKE, Bangalore (2013); The Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (2012); Tony Wight Gallery, Chicago (2012); Galerie Nordenhake, Berlin (2011); and Art Statements, Art Basel (2010). He has participated in group exhibitions at venues including Westfällischer Kunstverein, Münster (2019); Gallery Isabelle Van Den Eynde, Dubai (2017); Queens Museum, New York (2015); YBCA, San Francisco (2011); Galerie Balice Hertling, Paris (2010); and 1A Space, Hong Kong (2010). With a BFA from The Cleveland Institute of Art and an MFA from Bard College, he attended the Whitney Independent Study Program, Skowhegan and Smack Mellon. Premnath has received grants from Art Matters and the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and was awarded the Arthur Levitt Fellowship from Williams College. Based in Brooklyn, Premnath is the Director of the BFA Fine Arts program at Parsons School of Design, The New School, New York.

Avram Alpert researches literature and critical theory with a focus on the impact of globalization on modern thought and institutions. His writing examines what it means to be at once a private individual and a global subject, and how this dual demand has shaped modern life. His first book, *Global Origins of the Modern Self, from Montaigne to Suzuki* (SUNY Press, 2019) offers a history of modern selfhood, from Renaissance Europe to modern Japan. He also writes art criticism and fiction. He is a lecturer in the Princeton University Writing Program.


A detail of Sreshta Rit Premnath's installation. A big white form is hanging on a broken fence. 