The summer is finally here and with B.C. moving to step two of the B.C. Restart Plan, we are able to travel around the province recreationally! So feel free to go out, travel and enjoy the natural beauty of our province. But there’s also time to enjoy a few activities online as well. It’s been a long 15 months getting from there to here, so whatever you do, make it great and have fun!
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Rivers Have Mouths
June 12–Sept. 12
Rivers Have Mouths, an Indigenous and Chinese Canadian joint art exhibition on display at the Dr. Sun-Yat Sen Classical Chinese Garden, focuses on intergenerational dialogue and public education on wellbeing and recovery through art, history, knowledge and culture and was born out of a desire to call attention to the interconnected histories and lived experiences both groups have shared on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. For artist and event info, check out their website.
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National Indigenous Peoples Day – Who We Are Film Series
June 21–July 4
The Vancouver International Film Festival and the Museum of Vancouver will be commemorating Indigenous History Month with the Who We Are film series, celebrating Indigenous voices in cinema, showcasing strong engaging stories from First Nations, Métis, Inuit and Maori filmmakers while showing the beauty, complexities and vibrancies of Indigeneity around the globe. There will be five films sharing universal hard truths that deviate from trauma based narratives, but explore the themes of: healing, resiliency, joy, laughter, pain and community all woven throughout as a singular curation.
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Vancouver International Jazz Festival
June 25–July 4
The Vancouver International Jazz Festival will celebrate its 35th edition this summer, presenting a modified 2021 Festival with a program of over 100 virtual events as well as small in-person audiences to indoor concerts at two venues: Performance Works and The Ironworks. The 2021 Festival includes performances by British Columbia’s plethora of talented artists; streams from New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Amsterdam and Paris; free online workshops; club performances; talks and a continued partnership with North Shore Jazz. For more information, check out the festival’s website.
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Interior Infinite
June 25–Sept. 5
Interior Infinite, an exhibit at The Polygon, brings together an international group of artists whose works span photography, video, performance and sculpture. Predominantly featuring portraiture, with an emphasis on self-portraiture, the exhibition focuses on costume and masquerade as strategies for revealing, rather than concealing, identities. Across these works, disguise functions as an unmasking, as artists construct their own images through adornment in order to visually represent embodied experience, memory and understanding.
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Imperfect Offerings
June 26–Aug. 22
Imperfect Offerings features new commissions and past works by three B.C. artists with a ceramics practice: Jesse Birch, Naoko Fukumaru and Glenn Lewis. The works presented embody both function and beauty. Selected pieces recall the artists’ hands that made them, foregrounding the tactility of creating, rebuilding and healing. The exhibition’s core themes resonate with our collective journey through the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting recovery and a careful return to sociality. Several of the pieces are also functional pieces of pottery, meant to be used to serve tea or share food and drink. Each featured artist has a unique connection to the rich history of pottery in British Columbia, which was influenced by the revolutionary studio pottery movements of renowned Japanese potter Shōji Hamada and British ceramicist Bernard Leach.
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Autumn Strawberry & Hastings Park
June 26–Aug. 28
The Surrey Art Gallery will be unveiling two exhibitions for the summer: multimedia artists Henry Tsang’s photographic exhibit on Hastings Park during World War II and Cindy Mochizuki’s installation exhibiting life on Japanese Canadian farms in the interwar period. Roughly 8000 Japanese Canadians were marshalled and detained at Hastings Park prior to being sent to internment and labour camps throughout Canada. Tsang uses camera and projection technologies in unexpected ways to illuminate forgotten images and histories. Mochizuki’s installation weaves together a series of short vignettes imagined through a 60 minute hand-painted and digital animation projected onto the Gallery’s walls and screens. Visitors will see life on these farms –women pickling, children polishing chicken eggs and men picking berries. Mochizuki combines real with imagined characters and storylines in keeping with her art practice of historical re-creation.
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Canada Day at Home
July 1, 10 a.m.
Like many Canada Day celebrations, many are being held virtually. The Canada Day at Home interactive online program provides residents an opportunity to mark the occasion in ways that reflect their own values and beliefs. The event is organized by the City of Richmond in partnership with the Steveston Salmon Festival, an annual event rooted in history and heritage that provides an opportunity for people to come together in a display of community spirit. This year’s Canada Day at Home line-up includes opportunities for the whole family to participate. The July 1 event will kick off with a Digital Parade at 10 a.m., which will be streamable from the City of Richmond YouTube channel and their homepage. Check out their website for more information.
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Golden Spike Days Virtual and Drive Thru Festival
July 1, 11 a.m.–7 p.m. (Drive Thru) & July 1–4 (Virtual)
The Golden Spike Days Festival is one of the oldest and longest running family events in B.C. commemorating the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway line and its arrival at the original western terminus in Port Moody where the last spike was driven. The Drive-Thru event on July 1 will feature family friendly entertainment, food offerings and more at the Port Moody Recreation Centre. The virtual event will showcase arts and cookery demonstrations, fitness and children’s activities. Check out the Golden Spike Festival website for more information.
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Dancing on the Edge 2021
July 8–17
The 2021 festival features a diverse, exciting lineup of more than 30 online and live stage performances by leading artists from all across the country. The program includes specially curated digital programming with recorded online performances, premieres of dance films, and dance discussions. There will be outdoor live performances in the Firehall Courtyard (for very limited audiences with full COVID-19 safety precautions in place) and theatre performances with limited capacity if public health regulations permit (at the Firehall Arts Centre Theatre). Throughout the fest, audiences will be able to experience scheduled performances online as well as live on-stage.
