Position: MPCAS Curator 

Project: Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen

Reporting to: Programming Team

Hours: 15 hours per week. Occasional evening and weekend work. Flexible schedule. This is a 1 year contract position.

Remuneration: $27.00/hr

Start date: July 1, 2023

About the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen and grunt gallery:
The Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen (MPCAS) is a 7m x 4m outdoor urban screen located at the intersection of Kingsway and Broadway in Vancouver on the side of the Independant building, a mixed use commercial and residential tower. The screen is maintained and programmed by grunt gallery, and aspires to enrich and engage the public through the presentation of media art that reflects the diversity, historical richness and creative capacity of the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood.

Through an annual submission call, commissions, co-productions and partnerships, the screen features works for and about Mount Pleasant and the people who live here alongside programming that connects these local issues to global practices, ideas and concerns. The MPCAS is a place for media and interactive content both home-grown and far-flung, presented through the distinctive lens of the neighbourhood.

grunt gallery has been a part of the Mount Pleasant community since 1984 and has seen tremendous changes over this period. During the past 40 years the area has gone from one of Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhoods to one of its richest. This transition hasn’t been easy and the social costs of thirty years of gentrification have been intensifying, particularly with the Broadway Plan and incoming skytrain stations reshaping the area. MPCAS has been born of this tension and we seek to acknowledge both the Mount Pleasant that is being forced out and the new communities coming into being.

General Description of the Position: 

The MPCAS Curator works with the grunt programming team and Program Director, as well as  community partners to develop contacts and strengthen relationships between the MPCAS and its partners in the community.

The MPCAS Curator is a planner, implementer, and relationship builder who is responsible for maintaining existing programming and developing new initiatives that reflect the multiple and diverse communities in Mount Pleasant. They will take the lead in the curatorial vision of the screen, coordinating our annual submission call while cultivating partnerships with other art organizations and local festivals year-round. We expect this to take the shape of developing new projects and applying for funding opportunities to support them and in in-kind exchanges with community partners.

We are looking for a candidate who prioritizes developing local relationships and familiarizing themselves with the neighbourhood’s history, businesses, community organizations and art communities. They will work with grunt staff to develop strategies that bring community content to the screen, promote visibility and encourage broad access.

The MPCAS Curator is expected to work independently, but will play a key role in the grunt programming team, alongside the Program Director, curatorial staff and the technical manager.

Required Competencies:

Collaborative
Reliable
Committed
Independent
Community Minded
Resourceful
Creative
Flexible
Social
Communication

General Responsibilities: 

• Work with staff and committees to develop strategies and enhance contacts within the Mount Pleasant community in conjunction with the MPCAS’s vision for programming and the neighbourhood.
• Design and implement a curatorial vision that builds strong, long-term, and loyal relationships with audience members, supporters and communities.
• Develop programming for the MPCAS engaging heritage and cultural communities as well as community groups, seniors, youth and more.
• Continue to develop relationships with partners and collaborators from the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as well as the wider Indigenous communities of Vancouver.
• Collaborate and communicate with neighbourhood organizations to develop activities that promote the MPCAS’s presence (eg. community events and festivals such as Car Free Day, and organizations such as the Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House, Tonari Gumi, the Native Education College and many others). Previous partnerships have included limited run screenings with the Capture Photography Festival, VQFF, Room Magazine and other community based programming.
• Create content around programming and community engagement for the MPCAS’s social media and website. Collaborate with grunt’s Communications Manager as required.
• Update the MPCAS website and internal content management system.

Required Skills and Education: 

• Awareness of and experience working within the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood.
• Strong knowledge and commitment to bridge-building within diverse community frameworks.
• Strong written and oral communication skills; ability to target outreach materials to varying audiences and age groups; ability to listen, and bring strong awareness of interpersonal/ intercultural dynamics.
• Good understanding of artist-run culture.
• Ability to (or interest in developing skills to) write grants, and find alternative funding support for innovation.
• Post-secondary education or experience in community engagement, public programming, communications, activist organizing or arts-related disciplines is an asset.
• Some knowledge of media art practices and production requirements.
• Familiarity with Media and Video Arts.
• Some knowledge of public art (and public messaging in relation to art in the public realm) an asset.
• Some experience with social media content creation and CMS/Wordpress.
• Familiarity or interest in project development and management.
• Ability to perform well in a team environment and collaborate with others.
• Strong organizational skills, able to identify and prioritize tasks with minimal supervision, work independently, and take initiative.
• Resourceful, hands-on and pro-active.
• Proven ability to act in an assertive but professional manner and to represent oneself and an organization in a positive manner.
• Ability to work flexible hours.

Ethics and the Workplace: 

• The MPCAS curator must be invested in open communication and collaboration.
• Acknowledging that most accepted definitions of professionalism have racist origins, the MPCAS curator will be able to be present and engage in their work in a manner that is dedicated and as consistent as possible.
• We envision this role as one best served by working artists and creatives with their own on-going practices to consider this role; we hope to develop a working relationship wherein artists can exist both as artists and arts workers, and will be in conversation with the successful applicant on what grunt can do to support their on-going career.
• As a junior position, we strongly encourage emerging artists and curators to apply.

To apply: Please send cover letter and resume to Whess Harman by email at whess@grunt.ca

Application Deadline: May 26, 2023 @ 5:00 pm PDT

You are invited to grunt gallery’s memorial for Hillary Wood (December 25, 1948 – March 2, 2023), a dear friend, founding member, and beloved presence in the Vancouver arts community. All are welcome.  

The memorial will take place at grunt gallery located at 350 East 2nd Ave, Unit 116 in Vancouver (street parking available) on Sunday April 30th, 2023, from 1pm – 4pm. Remarks at 1:30pm, open to all. Drinks and light refreshments provided.

There will be a virtual gathering option as well. Please click here to join via Zoom, and enter the passcode 156732 for access.

grunt will prepare a slideshow presentation with images of Hillary and her artwork. If you have any digital images you would like to contribute please email them to Dan Pon, dan@grunt.ca. If you have any hard copy images you would like digitized and included please email Dan to make arrangements as soon as possible. You are also welcome to send quotes, memories, or other written tributes which will be included as text slides to the email above.

Masks are encouraged and provided on request.

Image: Hillary Wood with Joe Haag, Aiyyana Maracle, Edmund Melynchuk, Kempton Dexter, Barbara Seamon, Polly Bak, Phillip Beeman, and Glenn Alteen, For the Life of Art March/Arts Awareness Day, 1993. Photo by Pat Beaton.

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Visible Art Society (dba grunt gallery)

DATE: Thursday September 29, 2022
TIME: 6:30pm
LOCATION: Online
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86067695351

Meeting ID: 860 6769 5351

ADDRESS: #116 – 350 East 2nd Avenue, Vancouver, BC, V5T 4R8, Mainspace Building

Please join us for a fast and fun Annual General Meeting of the Visible Art Society (dba grunt gallery) by Zoom.  We will be meeting for the following purposes:

1. Presentation of the 2021 – 2022 audited financial statements
2. Board of Directors’ report
3. Program Director and Operations Director reports
4. Election of the society’s officers

Click here to access the 2022 AGM package. 

As a member, you are invited to attend virtually and vote.  If you are not a member, please go to grunt.ca and sign up for our newsletter by 5:00pm on September 28, 2022. There is no cost to membership.

We are offering and experimenting with low-sensory and voice-off exhibition visiting hours.

On Thursdays from 12-7 pm (newly extended!), our exhibition Manager, Kay Slater, will offer a low-sensory and/or voice-off experience to visitors wishing to visit the space and our exhibitions.

What this will mean:

• We will ask visitors to come scent-free on Thursdays (no perfume or scented body products—paint your nails a few days before visiting!)
• You can choose to be voice-off and not converse with our gallery staff. You will not be approached unless you approach us (or if you are in need of assistance). Kay is hard of hearing and will require mask-wearing (mandatory) visitors to communicate by writing, ASL, English sign, or to step outside and remove masks so they can lip read (English or French).
• Any sound or media pieces will be sound off or low-volume for visitors. Transcripts and captions will be available for all works.
• Overhead, exhibition lights will be dimmed, still providing safe passage through the space.

If you have any suggestions, additional requests for a low-sensory day, or would like us to anticipate your visit with additional consideration, please email us at access@grunt.ca – we welcome your feedback!

We are currently accepting submissions for the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen, until February 7th, 2022! We welcome contributions from artists, collectives, curators and other community members, organizations and community festivals. Generally speaking, submitted works should be 10 minutes or less and could include (but are not limited to) still images, time-based media, animations, performance works, archival video, interactive pieces, GIFs, experimental video, and curatorial/screening proposals.

The curatorial vision for the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen is centralized on the broader theme of PLACE. Initially, this focused on the literal geographical perimeters on the stolen, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations, as a part of one of so-called Vancouver’s earliest neighbourhoods. This theme has also evolved to encompass a continuing community and network of makers holding deep knowledge of the area’s histories, holding visions of the future, and holding ground as the landscape rapidly shifts in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. Topics have included identity, language, housing, city streets, food, neighbourhoods, landmarks, loss, memories, narratives of the past, and potential futures.

The MPCAS will continue to honour it’s initial framing of PLACE; as a community screen we are beholden to how we are on the land and how we wish to reflect the communities we envision this screen to be for. We also invite and encourage submissions which speak towards the ambiguity of place–of displacement, diaspora, digital and contested space, as well as artists whose work has been inextricably shaped by their time in the communities of this PLACE.

Click here for details and submission forms!

grunt gallery is closed for holidays December 18th, 2021—January 3rd, 2022.

See you in the new year!

Ben Bogart’s new work, A diffraction of past/stability and present/dynamism, will be featured on the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen from December 17th—26th, 2021. This beautifully complex work will screen for 7.5 hours/day, you can read more about the project here. We will also be presenting Ben’s work in our gallery, with an artist talk in January, 2022. We’re excited to share this work with you, and wanted to introduce you to Ben’s practice — read on for a mini interview with Ben Bogart!

Please tell us a bit about yourself and your creative practice!

I’m a non-binary agender adisciplinary conceptual artist and as I write this I’m constantly distracted by hummingbirds coming to visit my new feeder and delighted watching their tongues as they flick them out of their beaks after each sip of nectar. For over two decades I’ve focused on computational processes as artistic material; I think of the use of computational processes as following from the instruction works of 1960s conceptual art onward. In my artistic practice I’ve engaged with methods including physical modelling, chaotic equations, feedback systems, evolutionary algorithms, computer vision, and machine learning. I’ve diffracted these methods through bodies of knowledge in computational creativity, cognitive neuroscience, psychology of creativity, and quantum physics, and see continuity between my artistic and scholarly practices. Through these disparate methods and disciplines, my work engages with fundamental questions regarding subjectivity, objectivity, knowledge, meaning, emergence, complexity, autonomy, creativity, and thought. In recent years I’ve been thinking through Karen Barad’s Agential Realism and the ways in which boundary-making is fundamental to natural-cultural (physical-conceptual) processes. I’ve come to realize that my professional practice has always troubled and reworked physical and conceptual boundaries.

How did you become engaged with the technology used in your piece for the MPCAS?

My dad worked with computers his entire professional life, from a thesis written using punch cards, through magnetic reel-to-reel tape, to hard disks. He is also a photographer and for nearly as long as I can remember photography and digital imaging were available to me, but I’m not sure I thought of myself as an artist then. It wasn’t until moving to Toronto in 1999 that I was exposed to the “Electronic Media Art” scene that gave me a precedent for thinking about computation and technology as artistic materials. One of the first people I met outside of university was Camille Turner at the Subtle Technologies Conference in 1999 and it was her who introduced me to Jim Ruxton and InterAccess. I owe so much to artists such as David Rokeby and Norman White for expanding my boundaries of artistic practice and imagining a role for technology in it.

In 2001, I made a work using an evolutionary algorithm inspired by Karl Sims—who made a lot of formative computational art in the 1990s. My ongoing use of the Self-Organizing Map—a simple artificial neural network that rearranges pixels according to colour used in the MPCAS piece—started in 2006. My inspiration for using machine learning in art was George Legrady’s Pockets Full of Memories from 2001 which also uses the Self-Organizing Map. It’s hard to demarcate where machine learning differs from other computational methods such as feedback loops, chaos mathematics, or physical models. In all of my engagements with technology I’m looking to develop processes that have the capacity to surprise me. This surprise could be due to my misunderstanding—or the complexity—of the process. I see machine learning as just another engagement with complexity resulting from a process built up from the interactions of many simple components. From this high-level perspective, there is no difference between a physical model made up of many small mass-spring-damper components and artificial neural networks. I provide this short ~20 year personal history because while the tech industry is very good at emphasizing novelty, it is imperative for artists using tech to see their relation with—and situate their work in—the ~70 year history of artists working with electronic and computational technologies.

What interests you about the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen?

Having lived in East Van for a decade now I’ve spent a lot of time on the 10th and Ontario bike routes. Walking and cycling to go shopping at the old MEC store, or just to spend time on Main Street, I’ve seen a lot of changes in Mount Pleasant. I can hardly remember what used to be where The Independent now stands. How long will Kingsgate Mall stay around? What changes will we see in the next 10 years? My interest in public art is situated in a preoccupation with the ways an artwork can relate to its site—not only conceptually but also in terms of structure. My approach to public art involves using technologies that allow the structure of artworks to be created in dialogue with place. I see this as a natural extension of my interest in surprise and emergence where the site itself becomes a collaborator and the form of a work emerges from interactions between algorithms, the site, and my intention. Our city is changing so much and so quickly; there is so much potential for public art that literally (re)structures itself through these changes and reflects the city back to itself through an ongoing and evolving relationship. I hope there will be opportunities for even more ambitious multi-year permanent projects where artworks evolve ‘live’ as the city changes around them. Vancouver seems like an ideal place for this kind of work as we embark on large density projects to make staying here more viable.

To access the Project Fire Flower Artist Talk via phone:

We asked the Tidal Volume participating artists some questions to get to know them and their work, read on to learn from  Orene Askew (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh) and Salia Joseph (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Snuneymuxw) about the project they are creating during this digital artist residency.

Tell us about your creative practice. What projects have you been working on recently?

OA: My creative practice is all over the map, but it has always come back to music. I’m a DJ, Teacher, Activist, Motivational Speaker, and Media/Hip Hop Artist. My piece “O Show Flow,” is being shown at The Yoko Ono Exhibit at The Vancouver Art Gallery until May 2022. I finished filming “The O Show” Documentary by Human Biography earlier this year and now the film is winning awards at flim festivals around the world. I also finished recording my first Hip-Hop Track “Status & Clarity” (Which is featured at The Yoko Ono Exhibit) and filmed the music video for the track that will be out early next year.

SJ: My creative practice is hard to define as it an underlying aspect of how I move through my passions and roles within my community. I see my Squamish commitments as how I give back and what I have to offer. Part of that is through song, through learning and carrying teachings forward. I see cultural, community and creative practice as deeply connected and non-linear.

Can you tell us a bit about what ideas, forms or mediums you’re hoping to work with during this residency?

OA: Working with Salia, we had ideas flowing already in our first Zoom meeting. Our ideas were so similar and as we were talking the announcement of the children found in Tk’emlúps (Kamloops) was around that time. We both have family who had attended residential school and thought we should try to do something with sounds and media that will give back to our community, especially the survivors and the children who didn’t make it home. I don’t want to give too much away, but using sounds in our territory is going to be big part of our project.

SJ: For this residency we are looking to create a series of offerings for our community to help heal the wounds that are ever present, and currently being re-open and exposed with the findings at residential schools. While our own community undertakes their own research at former St. Paul’s residential school we wanted to create healing pieces that could be thought of as lullabies for our past, present and future ones. We are hoping to use pieces of old interview recordings, use of Squamish songs and language as well as sounds from our territory.

What excites you most about this residency? What do you foresee as the biggest challenge?

OA: What excites me about this residency is working with Salia Joseph. She is fluent in our Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Snichim (Squamish Language), has so much to offer, and I know I’m going to learn so much from her. She also has an amazing singing voice . The biggest challenge I foresee will be timing and recording equipment. I’m glad that we have support from a great Producer, Jane Aurora, and I can’t wait to get into her studio and start recording.

SJ: I’m most excited to be able to work with Orene and get to know her better as kin and as an artist. It’s been cathartic and healing for us to plan this work and I’m excited to having something to offer our community that aims to make people feel held and cared for. I’m also really exited to push myself out of my comfort zone and take on a new type of project such as this and continue to grow my creative capacities.

***

Orene Askew (she/ her), aka DJ O Show, brings energy and expertise to every event she hosts and DJs. She brings professionalism and passion and remains true to her love for hip hop and R&B, incorporating beats to ensure you never want to leave the dance floor! Coming from a diverse background, O Show is driven by her passion. She is Afro-Indigenous, two spirited, and a proud member of the Squamish Nation. Feeling as though she stood out in a unique way, she has embraced both her cultural backgrounds and incorporates the teachings she has learned into everything she does. DJ O Show has experience teaching with an inspired approach. She is an inspirational speaker, having traveled across the country to bring ambition and drive to all generations, and an elected member of Squamish Nation Council.

O Show has DJ’d the red carpet for Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week and was voted the official DJ for YES in Ottawa since 2012 and the official DJ for Gathering Our Voices for five years. She has hosted/MC’d/Played at numerous events, including Bowling for Big Brother’s Classic, Babes on Babes, Hershe and working for radio stations like Vancouver’s Virgin 94.5 and Washington’s Movin’ 92.5. She is the recipient of a 2015 BC Indigenous Business Award, 2018 Stand Out Award from the Vancouver Pride Society, and a 2021 Alumni of Excellence Award from Capilano University.

Salia Joseph, St’ax̱í7alut (she/her) is Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Snuneymuxw, British and Jewish. She is a graduate of the First Nations and Indigenous studies program at UBC and cares deeply about decolonial, and intersectional approaches to learning and caring for one another. Salia is the executive director of Kwi Awt Stelmexw, a Sḵwx̱wú7mesh non profit focused on language revitalization. She is also part owner of a business called Host Consulting inc. which is a Musqueam, Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh consultancy focused on public art and decolonial dialogues.

Maya Hodge is a proud Lardil & Yangkaal woman raised in Mildura, Victoria. Based on the lands of the Kulin Nation (Melbourne), Maya is an emerging artist, published poet, curator and violinist whose work explores the power of healing in the arts, through uplighting First Nations creativity and Aboriginal women’s autonomy.

Maya is a president artist in this mob collective’s art studio, based at Collingwood Yards, and a founding member of Ensemble Duatala, an all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander classical ensemble. Maya has been involved in various projects and exhibitions including dis rupt, YIRRAMBOI Festival (2019); Constant Ecology, Westspace, KINGS Artist-Run (2020); Black Wattle with this mob, ArtsHouse Refuge Program (2021). Maya is currently the Assistant Curator – Exhibitions & Programs at Blak Dot Gallery.

Jarra Karalinar Steel is a multidisciplinary artist known for her Melbourne Art Tram, powerful poster art, large-scale public installations, augmented reality, digital art, emu egg engravings, and commemorative signage. Steel explores her identity, memories, pop culture, folklore from her cultural history, and lived experiences growing up in Melbourne and living on country in culture with knowledge passed down through her family.

Steel is of Boon Wurrung, Wemba Wemba, Trawlwoolway, English and Scottish descent, and is based in Melbourne’s south on Boonwurrung country. She is a passionate advocate and consultant for self-representation of Victorian First Peoples art and culture and making sure it is kept alive and thriving. Her focus in public and community art looks at ways to insert contemporary cultural visual language into the urban and digital landscape by reclaiming space and belonging through digital storytelling.

Images: Orene Askew, photo by Belle Ancell; Salia Joseph, photo by Kaili’l Smith.