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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…
Ai Weiwei’s work is here in Vancouver. The world-renowned artist is among 10 prominent Chinese artists whose recent works have been brought together in an exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The exhibition, Unscrolled: Reframing Tradition in Chinese Contemporary Art, aims to draw attention away from the activist aspects of the art and more towards…
True to its mandate to display work that examines the relationship between contemporary art theory and practice, Artspeak, a non-profit artist run centre in Vancouver, is currently featuring Seurat and Friends, an exhibit which comments on the complex dynamic between art and labour. Georges-Pierre Seurat was a seminal French post-impressionist painter whose signature pointilist method…
Japanese artist Shimabuku is remarkably curious. And through his highly imaginative artistic practice, he makes the familiar and mundane seem fascinating, humorous and strange. For Shimabuku, it is most important that his audience receives something positive from his work and experiences it freely. “My art is not about understanding. I’m not asking people to understand…
Interweavings, an exhibition at the Richmond Art Gallery, explores the importance of mentoring and tradition in contemporary First Nations art. The exhibit presents approximately 30 works by seven emerging artists who have received the YVR Art Foundation Youth Scholarship, alongside works by their mentors, internationally acclaimed First Nations artists. It highlights the significance of mentoring…
Although Vancouver-based artists Kelly Gough and Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo have contrasting histories and artistic practices, they share common ground. Gallery Gachet’s current exhibition, Coalescence: A Body of Memories, brings together the unique, yet connected, narratives of these two artists as they explore issues surrounding war, violence and the effects of trauma. Kristin Lantz, Gallery Gachet’s…
While some artists approach art merely conceptually, literally or spontaneously, Tomoyo Ihaya, an internationally renowned artist, blends many approaches. Her primary source of inspiration comes from direct experience, and that is precisely why she has been a resident artist in several different countries. Experience brings her the kind of passion she needs in order to…
A glimpse of a city that was forbidden to the public for 500 years can now be seen in Vancouver for the first time. On Oct. 18, 1000 visitors flocked to the Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) for the opening of The Forbidden City: Inside the Court of China’s Emperors, an exhibition that will run until…
