Olivia Qiu, Contemporary Art Gallery guided tour leader, gives a description of the current exhibits, including James Welling and Meric Algun Ringborg. | Photo by Florence Hwang
In order to foster interest and understanding in the arts, the Contemporary Art Gallery (CAG) offers guided tours in various languages, including French, Spanish and Mandarin, to audiences who may not normally interact with art.
In mid-November, the Mandarin guided tour of James Welling and Meric Algun Ringborg’s art work attracted about 15 people. Allan Lim, originally from Singapore, wanted to learn more about contemporary art.
“Vancouver has lots of arts and culture. I know nothing about contemporary art. I think having a guided tour, for a beginner, is quite good. I learned how to appreciate art. It’s quite eye-opening to me,” says Lim.
Clair Cheng, originally from Xi’An, China, has walked by the gallery many times, but didn’t really notice it until recently.
“At least you tend to understand [the exhibit] when you have a guided tour. It’s informative and interesting as a beginning point,” says Cheng, who would go to another guided tour if she had the chance.
Oliva Qiu, tour guide leader, enjoys explaining art to people. Qiu, a fourth year Emily Carr student, prepared the November exhibit in one day. She builds her guided tour notes on material the gallery provides and information she researches on her own. So far, the response has been positive.
“One person said, ‘It’s good just having a bit of information. It’s helpful.’ I can tell they get excited about learning,” she says.
Olivia Qui welcomes visitors to the Contemporary Art Gallery. | Photo courtesy of Florence Hwang
Jill Henderson, Communications Coordinator of the CAG, says the multilingual guided tours draw new, more diverse audiences. The CAG has had a variety of artists exhibit their works from countries such as Ireland, China, America, Poland, Iran and Germany.
“Having guided tours is a good way to welcome people. Not everyone’s first language is English,” says Henderson, who has lived in Toronto and New York.
Currently the gallery has tours in English, French, Spanish, and Mandarin. French tours were introduced in 2009.
Shaun Dacey, Curator of Learning and Public Programs with the gallery, says when he started working with the gallery eight months ago, he wanted to test run different languages for guided tours to grow audiences interested in learning about contemporary art.
“We started multilingual tours to help nurture different sorts of dialogue. As a public gallery, we want to make it accessible as possible, beyond English speakers,” says Dacey.
Dacey has some friends who are Spanish. He noticed there was a growing population of Spanish speaking people in the West End and suggested that the gallery offer Spanish guided tours.
While some larger museums, such as the Guggenheim in New York, offer headsets for self-guided tours in different languages, Dacey thinks the face-to-face guided tours are more suitable for the CAG’s more intimate space. He likes that people can asks guides questions.
“Guides spark that conversation in a gallery. People don’t think they can have an opinion or say [anything] because they’re not in the art world. There can be conversations that come up, such as political or contemporary social issues,” explains Dacey.
“I find it’s a very good opportunity to engage people with contemporary art. Because the Chinese audience isn’t into contemporary art,” Qiu adds. “They still are not used to discussing or jumping in or making comments about what they see.”
Qiu finds the audiences are a bit shy because contemporary art is very new to them.
“I feel very happy [giving guided tours] to bring more people to see art. It’s a great thing,” says Qiu, who loves art.
Late 2014, Shimabuku, a Japanese artist, will exhibit his work in the CAG. The gallery is considering offering a guided tour in Japanese for the exhibit.
