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Mehrad Rahbar has always been tuned in to events around him – the Iran revolution in 1979, the 1989 Montreal massacre of 14 female students and the Arab Spring that spread across the Middle East and North Africa in early 2011. He considers himself a human rights activist and is involved in various Iranian-Canadian organizations…
Bernadette Phan, a Vietnamese-Canadian painter, currently exhibits a series of drawings titled “Lili and the Migratory Influences” at the Bob Prittie Library in Burnaby. With this project, Phan wants to pay homage to her late aunt Lili, who shaped and influenced her greatly. While Phan was mostly raised in Canada, she has quite a diverse…
Emotions are to be explored when viewing artwork from Melvin Yap, a Malaysian-born Vancouver-raised artist. He encourages people to take a second look at how flowers can be photographed at his new flower exhibition to be held at the Kimoto Gallery in Vancouver, March 6–28. “Ka-Bloom is an explosion without the dynamite,” says Yap, 36,…
In 越界/粵界 (transgression/cantosphere), Hong Kong Exile (HKX), an interdisciplinary art company comprised of Natalie Tin Yin Gan, Milton Lim and Remy Siu, collaborates with linguist Zoe Lam and artist Howie Tsui to examine local and international pressures on their culture. The exhibit engages with the Cantonese language and reflects on the relationship between urban planning…
Poem 593, written by one of the most important American female poets, Emily Dickinson, provides in itself the centre for inspiration of downtown Vancouver’s most recent, and anticipated art exhibit at the Fall Tattooing & Artist’s Gallery: “The Dark – felt beautiful.” A mystical line from Dickinson`s Poem 593, provides a framework in serving as…
A passion for story and language, has Haida artist Gwaai Edenshaw using his knowledge of Haida stories to help find the hidden within ourselves at the new exhibit Godanxee’wat: Stone Ribs showing at the Bill Reid Gallery (Jan. 12 until Jul. 5). Edenshaw – who apprenticed with Bill Reid when he was 16 – also…
Maiko Behr’s February workshop at the Nikkei Centre will explore the historical, philosophical and aesthetic influences of Zen on the development and practice of the tea ceremony. Behr, a long time tea practitioner is a certified instructor in the Omotesenke tradition of chanoyu, the Japanese tea ceremony. She will present a slide lecture and discuss…
The Instant Coffee Collective (ICC) brings its uniquely quirky aesthetic to the Nikkei National Museum archives, unwrapping old stories and creating a stage for new discoveries of Japanese Canadian history. Magic hour is that time of day when the sun sits below the horizon, and offers a brief period of soft light that takes the…
Sharing Our Stories, an exhibit at the North Vancouver Museum and Archives (NVMA), features the stories and objects of 12 Iranians living on the North Shore. Recognizing the large presence of the Iranian community, the NVMA’s assistant director, Shirley Sutherland, and her colleagues formed an advisory committee to investigate how the members of the Iranian…
In his latest exhibition, Crossed, Vancouver-based artist Ahmad Tabrizi shares a unique form of portraiture and visual poetry, where the complexities of language, expression and identity overlap with the experiences and memories of a political refugee. “The work is about political memory and experiences, but it is not just political,” says Tabrizi, “It is about…
Unveiled just before the Christmas holiday, a public sculpture in the shape of an “F”, created by the world-renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, sits on a lawn in Harbour Green Park at the north end of Bute Street. The work, enigmatically titled F Grass, has left many people guessing at what it means.…
Provoking thoughtful commentary from readers on social issues can create barriers with just the use of words. Political cartoons – often witty, at times graphic, but never dull – transcend such barriers to inform and even sway public opinion through a captioned pictorial representation of underlying attitudes and emotions. In the past, political cartoons have…
The number of toes on a dragon, the modern evolution of saris, the importance of colour, where khakis came from –Richmond Museum’s latest exhibit Interwoven World (Identity and Fashion) takes guests on a whirlwind fashion history tour. At the end of the short journey, a floor-to-ceiling mirror offers a look at how clothing and where…
