[Apply now](https://www.artsumbrella.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2023-VASI-Application-Form-fillable.pdf "button")

Contemporary Art Practices is a full scholarship three-week visual art intensive designed for artists ages 15–19 who are interested in immersing themselves in the world of contemporary art to advance their artistic skills and expand their creative thinking.

The intensive is a stimulating experience for teen artists committed to experimentation and dedicated to pushing the boundaries of their own art practice. In a dedicated studio environment, students will work with professional Vancouver artists, curators, and educators to explore a range of contemporary art practices and have access to specialized studios and facilities at Arts Umbrella’s Granville Island location as well as unique access to exhibitions and learning opportunities at the Contemporary Art Gallery.

Through a series of artist-led workshops, one-to-one mentorships, and self-directed projects students will be pushed to expand their creative and critical practice. They will engage in critiques with professional curators, group discussions on chosen themes and readings, and learn to develop their ideas to work with new materials and methods.

The program culminates with an exhibition of student work.

For more information and to apply, please click [here](https://www.artsumbrella.com/programs/art/scholarship-programs/visual-art-summer-intensive/). 

### Program dates
August 7 → 25, 2023 
Monday to Friday, 1 PM → 4 PM

### Application deadline
May 31 at 11:59 PM

### Acknowledgements
Generously supported by Tom Ferries and Lisa Pankratz and The Parachute Fund

A young artist sits at a desk with headphones on. In the background, paintings and sculptural artworks are displayed.

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220430_Arts-Umbrella_Albert-Law-1699.jpg

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Call for applications

Visual Art Summer Intensive

Lorna Brown

Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill

Dionne Lee

Sesemiya

[RSVP](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/talk-gabrielle-lhirondelle-hill-dionne-lee-sesemiya-with-lorna-brown-tickets-636858449767 "button")

Join us for a public conversation between the summer 2023 exhibiting artists, moderated by Lorna Brown.

### RSVP
Registration for this event is required. Secure your place [here](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/talk-gabrielle-lhirondelle-hill-dionne-lee-sesemiya-with-lorna-brown-tickets-636858449767).

### Accessibility
ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

### Biographies
Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill is an artist and writer. Her practice explores the history of found materials to enquire into concepts of land, property, and economy. Recent exhibitions include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the 59th Venice Biennale; Le Magasin CNAC, Grenoble; the Vancouver Art Gallery; the College Art Galleries at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon; and Gallery TPW, Toronto. She 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. Hill is Cree and English, with maternal roots in the Michel Band and Papaschase. She lives on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm and səlilwətaɬ Nations.

Sesemiya (Tracy Williams) is a knowledge seeker, dreamer, water protector, land defender, lover, mother, auntie, weaver, and cultural practitioner. Her rich relationships with plants, animals, land, and water have taken her to the tops of mountains, the bottom of the ocean, fields of fireweed, and occasionally art galleries. Her work has appeared in exhibitions such as *lineages and land bases*, Vancouver Art Gallery (2020); *Intangible: Memory and Innovation in Coast Salish Art*, Bill Reid Gallery (2017); and *N. Vancouver*, The Polygon Gallery (2017). In 2021, a commissioned work of Sesemiya’s was included in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s presentation of Yoko Ono’s *Water Event*. Sesemiya is a proud member of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Nation.

Dionne Lee is a visual artist working in photography, collage, sculpture, and video. Her work explores power and personal history in relation to the American landscape, and interrogates historical narratives that exist within photographic representations of land and place. Lee received her MFA from California College of the Arts. She has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Feria Material, Mexico City; New Orleans Museum of Art; Aperture Foundation, New York; Silver Eye Center for Photography, Pittsburgh; Museum of Fine Arts Houston; and the San Francisco Arts Commission, among others. Lee was a 2022 Artist-in-Residence at the Chinati Foundation and is a 2021–2023 Artist-in-Residence with Unseen California.

Lorna Brown is a Vancouver-based visual artist, curator, writer and editor. Brown is a founding member of Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, and is an ongoing member of the Other Sights Producer team. She was the Director/Curator of Artspeak Gallery from 1999 to 2004, an artist-run centre focusing on the relationship between visual art and writing. Between 2015 and 2022, she was Acting Director/Curator at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of British Columbia, curating exhibition series such as *Beginning With the Seventies* that explored the relationship between art, archives and activism. Brown has exhibited her work internationally since 1984, and has taught at Simon Fraser University and Emily Carr University of Art and Design where she received an honorary doctorate of letters in 2015. Awards include the Vancouver Institute for the Visual Arts Award (1996) and the Canada Council Paris Studio Award (2000). Her work is in the collections of the Belkin, SFU Galleries, the National Gallery of Canada, the BC Arts Council, the Surrey Art Gallery and the Canada Council Art Bank.

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In Conversation - Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Dionne Lee and Sesemiya with Lorna Brown.jpg

Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill, Dionne Lee & Sesemiya with Lorna Brown

In Conversation

Please join us to celebrate CAG's summer 2023 exhibitions, *Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill: M******, *Sesemiya: s7ulh waḵáy̓stn iy ta stamsh cht*, and *Dionne Lee: Ratios*. The artists will be in attendance.

All ages welcome. Cash bar.

### RSVP
No advance registration required.

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Process image 2 (cropped), Gabe Hill.png

Summer 2023

Opening Reception

Join CAG’s Curator Godfre Leung for a walkthrough of the current exhibitions.

### Accessibility
ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

### RSVP
No advance registration required.

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Curatorial Tour with Godfre Leung.JPG

with Godfre Leung

Curatorial Tour

Kit Liu

[RSVP](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/open-studio-impressions-on-paper-with-kit-liu-tickets-601723700787 "button")

Open Studio is a monthly program for young visitors and families inspired by contemporary art practices and CAG’s current exhibitions. In April, we invite you to join us for an art-making workshop led by artist Kit Liu. 

Inspired by CAG’s current exhibition *Kathy Slade: As the sun disappears and the shadows descend from the mountaintop*, Kit will guide participants in making a collagraph print, a printmaking technique made from a collage of various materials glued onto a plate. Through a playful exploration of shapes, lines and textures on paper, this workshop will investigate both practices of repetition and imitation.

### RSVP
Registration for this event is free, but limited. RSVP to secure your place [here](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/open-studio-impressions-on-paper-with-kit-liu-tickets-601723700787).

### Biography
Kit Liu is a Canadian visual artist with an interest in the nature of being mortal. Working with graphite, paint, copper etching and relief printmaking, Kit pulls impressions to reconcile the duality of life and death, and to explore the magnitude of human care and grief. Recent print media exhibitions include *SAVE IT IN A PILE* (2021), *MATRIX* (2021), and *You are small and you are beautiful.* (2022) at the Michael O'Brian Exhibition Commons at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

### Accessibility
ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

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Open Studio with Kit Liu.jpg

Impressions on Paper with Kit Liu

Open Studio

Rebecca Bair

[RSVP](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvduuhrjouHNJ8HtRBLhXt2-AelGNed4UT "button")

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 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 month, CAG Reads will be hosted by Rebecca Bair. Rebecca has chosen to read the novel *Homegoing* by Yaa Gyasi.

### Getting the texts
*Homegoing* is available for purchase in the CAG bookstore, at [Massy Books](https://storestock.massybooks.com/item/fL1Fm1B4rfEUCZ_fBw3lbw) and can also be found at the [Vancouver Public Library](https://vpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S38C4712992).

### RSVP
Registration for this event is free, but limited. RSVP to secure your place [here](https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUvduuhrjouHNJ8HtRBLhXt2-AelGNed4UT).

Questions? Send us a note at [cagreads@cagvancouver.org](mailto:cagreads@cagvancouver.org).

### Accessibility
This event will be live captioned (CART). For more information please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org).

ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

### Biography
Rebecca Bair is an interdisciplinary artist based in Vancouver — the traditional and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish peoples. Her research aims to explore the possibilities of specific representation and of identity through abstraction and non-figuration. Bair uses multimedia approaches and Sun collaborations to illustrate her exploration of identity and intersectionality, through the lens of her own experience as a Black Woman on Turtle Island. Her artistic, professional and educational goals revolve around common themes of celebrating Black plurality, as well as enabling interpersonal and intercultural care, and her work acts as a vehicle through which the complexities of history and identity can be uncovered, redefined and expressed.

A portrait of Rebecca Bair. She is wearing earrings, a black long-sleeve shirt and is smiling.

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CAG Reads with Rebecca Bair.jpg

Rebecca Bair presents Yaa Gyasi

CAG Reads

Silas Ng

One Saturday each month, CAG invites a guest host to lead walkthroughs of our current exhibitions, offering their insights and response to the works on view. In April, we welcome Silas Ng to speak on the work of Christine Sun Kim. 

### Accessibility
This event will be delivered in ASL. An ASL interpreter will be present. 

### RSVP
No advance registration required.

### Biography
Silas Ng is an emerging multi-disciplinary artist based on the unceded territories of Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. He holds his Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography from Emily Carr University. He is currently studying in the School of Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University for his Master of Fine Arts and Master of Arts in Contemporary Arts. His emerging research of deaf studies has focused on media and multisensory learning from the sense of sight and touch to reveal how audiovisual films shape his understanding of sound in immersive experience.

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Saturday Session with Silas Ng (2 of 2) - smaller file.jpg

Silas Ng on Christine Sun Kim

Saturday Session

Join CAG’s Executive Director Matthew Hyland for a walkthrough of the current exhibitions.

### Accessibility
ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

### RSVP
No advance registration required.

thumbnail_Curatorial Tour with Matthew Hyland.JPG

Curatorial Tour with Matthew Hyland.JPG

with Matthew Hyland

Past Talks & Events

Upcoming Talks & Events

A stone with the outline of a handprint is displayed on a blue tarped surface.

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DL_YT_North.jpg

Karice Mitchell

One Saturday each month, CAG invites a guest host to lead walkthroughs of our current exhibitions, offering their insights and response to the works on view. In June, we welcome Karice Mitchell to speak on the work of Dionne Lee. 

### Accessibility
ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

### RSVP
No advance registration required.

### Biography
Karice Mitchell (b. 1996, Toronto) is a photo-based installation artist whose practice uses found imagery and digital manipulation to engage with issues relating to the representation of the Black female body in pornography and popular culture. Her work seeks to re-contextualize pre-existing images to reimagine the possibilities for Black womanhood and sexuality detached from the white gaze and patriarchy. She received her BFA at York University in 2019 and her MFA at the University of Waterloo in June 2021. She resides on the unceded and traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. She is a full-time lecturer at the University of British Columbia Vancouver campus.

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KM_Headshot.jpeg

Karice Mitchell on Dionne Lee

[RSVP](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/open-studio-sleway-working-with-cedar-with-sesemiya-tickets-645644107907 "button")

Open Studio is a monthly program for young visitors and families inspired by contemporary art practices and CAG’s current exhibitions. In June, we invite you to join us for a hands-on workshop led by exhibiting artist Sesemiya.

Inspired by her current exhibition *s7ulh waḵáy̓stn iy ta stamsh cht* (Our Weapons and Warriors), participants will learn about ancient weapons and tools of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh stamsh (warrior). Sesemiya will guide the group in making a fundamental and versatile tool, cedar rope, as well as talk about the importance of protecting our wild spaces and waterways.

### RSVP
Registration for this event is free, but limited. A number of spots are reserved for families. RSVP to secure your place [here](https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/open-studio-sleway-working-with-cedar-with-sesemiya-tickets-645644107907).

### Biography
Sesemiya (Tracy Williams) is a knowledge seeker, dreamer, water protector, land defender, lover, mother, auntie, weaver, and cultural practitioner. Her rich relationships with plants, animals, land, and water have taken her to the tops of mountains, the bottom of the ocean, fields of fireweed, and occasionally art galleries. Her work as an artist and educator is deeply invested in cultural revitalization and she has developed numerous programmes for connecting Sḵwx̱wú7mesh youth to traditional hand technologies and knowledge for living off the land. Her work has appeared in exhibitions such as *lineages and land bases*, Vancouver Art Gallery (2020); *Intangible: Memory and Innovation in Coast Salish Art*, Bill Reid Gallery (2017); and *N. Vancouver*, The Polygon Gallery (2017). In 2021, a commissioned work of Sesemiya’s was included in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s presentation of Yoko Ono’s *Water Event*. Sesemiya is a proud member of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation.

### Accessibility
ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

Sesemiya in profile holding a woven basket.

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Sesemiya Headshot - Courtesy of the artist.jpg

Working with Cedar with Sesemiya (Open Studio)

Sléway̓

A black and white photograph of Whess Harman. They sit by the water and smiling. 

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Polarioid_photocredit_EliHirtle.jpeg

Whess Harman

One Saturday each month, CAG invites a guest host to lead walkthroughs of our current exhibitions, offering their insights and response to the works on view. In July, we welcome Whess Harman to speak on the work of Gabrielle L'Hirondelle Hill. 

### Accessibility
ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

### RSVP
No advance registration required.

### Biography
Whess Harman is a member of the Carrier Wit’at Nation, a nation amalgamated by the federal government under the Lake Babine Nation. He doesn’t like cops and believes in land sovereignty for Indigenous peoples all across the globe. In his arts practice he works primarily in drawing, text and textiles. As the curator at grunt gallery and occasional editor for a mish-mash of publications, he prioritizes emerging queer and BIPOC cultural workers and artists. Whess looks to the arts as one of many tools in fighting oppressive forces and can be a little fucking rude about it, when the occasion calls.

Whess Harman on Gabrielle L'Hirondelle Hill

Latashkinem

One Saturday each month, CAG invites a guest host to lead walkthroughs of our current exhibitions, offering their insights and response to the works on view. In August, we welcome Latashkinem to speak on the work of Sesemiya. 

### Accessibility
ASL interpretation is available on request. Requests can be accommodated up to 5 days in advance. Please contact [learning@cagvancouver.org](mailto:learning@cagvancouver.org) to book or for more information.

### RSVP
No advance registration required.

### Biography
Nilh kwens Latashkinem kweshamen aka Robert Williams tina chen tla Humulchestn Uxwumixw ti Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Temixw. My ancestral name is Latashkinem aka Robert Williams and I currently reside in the village of Humulchestn in the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Territory. I worked with our tribe as a cultural worker providing support to our youth with the guidance of our elders and chiefs. My new career as a digital artist and storyteller has allowed me to adapt my knowledge and experience in a modern context. My future goals are to write new stories for children and create art inspired by the legends and history of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh. En wenaxten skwalewen. I have love for our people.

Discussions, workshops and more

Upcoming Talks & Events

Past Talks & Events