Particles completes grunt’s exchange with organizations and artists in Seoul, South Korea. This international program began in 2018 with Instant Coffee’s project Pink Noise Pop Up , which saw curator Vanessa Kwan, artist collective Instant Coffee and Vancouver-based artists Jeneen Frei Njootli, Casey Wei, Krista Belle Stewart and Ron Tran mount an exhibition and a series of events at two partnering organizations in Seoul. This year’s program includes an artist residency, an exhibition and a curatorial visit.

RESIDENCY
Artist: Yaloo, April 18th – May 17th, 2019, Western Front Media Arts/ grunt gallery

Talk: Animation Show and Tell
Featuring Yaloo, with Howie Tsui and Lianne Zannier
April 25th, 7 PM.
Location: Grand Luxe Theatre at the Western Front.
Produced in collaboration with Western Front Media Arts

VISITING CURATORS
Curators: InYoung Yeo (Art Space One, Seoul) and Soojung Yi (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul).
May 8th – 17th, 2019.

Curator’s Talk and Open House
InYoung Yeo and Soojung Yi with Yaloo
May 13th, 6:30 PM
Location: Grand Luxe Theatre at the Western Front

At this Curator’s talk, Seoul-based curators InYoung Yeo (Art Space One) and Soojung Yi (National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art) will discuss digital technologies, art and urbanism. Yeo and Yi will address the conditions of production, collaboration and presentation in Korea and the influence of digital technologies on arts communities and the public realm. The event will also showcase the latest work in progress by Yaloo, developed while in residence at Western Front.

EXHIBITION
dot.dot.dot.
Artists: Sejin Kim and InYoung Yeo.
Curated by Vanessa Kwan with InYoung Yeo
May 10 – June 22, 2019.
Opening Reception: May 9, 7 – 10 PM. Location: grunt gallery

dot.dot.dot. brings together Seoul-based artists Sejin Kim and InYoung Yeo for their first presentations in Canada. Working at the intersection of media and installation, Kim and Yeo’s practices explore the omnipresence of interactive technologies and their varying effects on human experience. Far from decrying the advance of ‘the digital’ the artists represent an embedded yet critically engaged position. Their works contend, as we all must, with an embodied perspective in a technological environment that, in both promise and imperfection, is intertwined with our survival.

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Province of British Columbia through the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture. Particles: Seoul to Vancouver is produced in partnership with Western Front Media Arts, the Banff Centre for the Arts and Pacific Crossings

Participant Bios

Yaloo is a media artist currently based in Seoul and Chicago. Her work creates poetic narratives that explore regionalism, consumer culture and digital interactivity using transcultural icons such as corn, ginseng, and cosmetics. Via alternative video imaging technologies such as video projection mapping, sublimation transfer techniques and virtual reality, intimate relationships between consumerism and regionalism are mediated in spectacular, multi-faceted digital landscapes. She completed an MFA (2015) and BFA (2011) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a focus on digital image-making and digital installation. She was the first recipient of Lyn Blumenthal Memorial Scholarship by Video Data Bank (VDB). Since 2009 she has shown her work internationally, including exhibitions in Seoul, Malmö, Frankfurt, Brooklyn, Seattle, Columbus, and Chicago. Her work is often site-specific with a strong research component, and recent residencies include the Bemis Studio Art Centre, Fukuoka Asian Museum of Art, Headlands Centre for the Arts, and High Concept Labs, Chicago

InYoung Yeo is an independent curator and director. With a background in English Literature, Illustration and Fine Art in countries including UK, US and Korea, she founded Space One, an independent artist-run space, in Seoul in 2014. Since then, she has put together various collaborative exhibitions, working and experimenting with emerging artists and art spaces from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, UK, US and Canada, among others. Some of her recent curatorial projects and exhibitions include Intersections of Common Space and Time supported by Seoul Art Foundation, Goethe-Institut Seoul; Gender Hierarchy supported by Geothe-Institut Singapore in collaboration with Grey Projects Singapore; A.I.MAGINE Seoul City, Seoul National University commissioned, Seoul Digital Foundation, Seoul Data Science Lab Project; a three-way dialogue with the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2017; East Asia Goethe-Institut project ‘A Better Version of 人’ programs in Korea.

Soojung Yi was born in Busan, Korea. Yi worked for Daejeon Museum of Art as Curator of Media Art and worked for Art Center Nabi (Seoul) as a creative director, where her focus was the production of media art for the public realm. There she researched the rising number of media façades in urban space and its interaction with the public. She joined the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul) 2012 and has been working for the exhibition and projects related to media arts. Her previous projects include The Future is Now! New Media Collection from MMCA, Korea, Younghae Chang Heavy Industries (2013); Shirin Neshat (2014); Infinite Challenge-Women Media Pioneers in Asia, Anechoic Project-experimental films and music performances (2014); and William Kentridge (2015).

Sejin Kim received her MFA in Fine Art from Slade School of Fine Art in London and MA in Film/TV from Sogang University in Seoul. She works with a variety of media apparatuses, including documentary realism and cinematic language to explore relationships between individuals and contemporary cultural systems. Her work has been shown internationally including selected solo exhibitions: The Chronology of Chance, Media Theater, Seoul; Prizma Residency #1, Prizma Space, Istanbul, Turkey; The Proximity of Longing, Cultural Station 284, Seoul. Selected group exhibitions include The Arrival of New Women, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Galaxias Maculates, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Valdivia, Chile; Future is Now!, La Friche Belle de Mai, Marseille, France; The Shade of Prosperity, INIVA, London; Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011, ICA Gallery, London & S1 Art Space, Sheffield, UK; Life Stage, Art Centre Nabi, Seoul; The 4th Gwangju Biennale: PAUSE. She is the recipient of the Songeun Art Prize, Bloomberg New Contemporaries), and The 4th DAUM Prize and she has participated in artist residencies at HIAP-Helsinki international Artist Program, SeMA Nanji Art Studio, Seoul, ISCP-International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York, Seoul Art Space_Geumcheon, Seoul, Goyang National Art Studio, and Taipei Artist Village, Taiwan.

Together Apart has been envisioned as a way of making and holding space for 2SQ/Indigiqueer folks to come together and to be in dialogue with one another so that we might centre the conversations we’d like to hear or that we feel have been absent in our communities. However, our intentions are also simple: to celebrate and enjoy one another’s creativity and dedication to our practices, and to recognize one another in such a way that speaks across the distances we experience in our living and movement through our worlds.

Together Apart will be held in a series of both public and 2SQ/Indigiqueer events only, as outlined in our schedule. Please follow us on the Facebook page and on Instagram for updaes.

Schedule

FRIDAY, APRIL 19

Event: 2SQ/Indigiqueer Nature Walk w. Cease Wyss

Time: 11:00 – 12:00PM
Location: Native Education Centre, 237 E 5th Ave, Vancouver
*Closed to 2SQ/Indigiqueer participants only
Participants will join together with Cease Wyss to open our event by spending some time on the land together; though many of us are navigating urbanized living, the urban landscape still lays atop lands that deserve attention, acknowledgement and respect. Cease will lead participants through spaces where the land is more evident and discuss some of her on-going community projects.

Event: Keynote Address by Lindsay Nixon (followed by Poetry Readings)

Time: 7:00 – 8:00
 PM
Location: grunt gallery
*Free and open to the public
Our keynote address will be presented by Lindsay Nixon, a Cree-Métis-Saulteaux curator, award-nominated editor, award-nominated writer and McGill Art History PhD student studying Indigenous (new) feminist artists and methodologies in contemporary art. They currently hold the position of Editor-at-Large for Canadian Art. Nixon has previously edited mâmawi­-âcimowak, an independent art, art criticism and literature journal. Their writing has appeared in The Walrus, Malahat Review, Room, GUTS, Mice, esse, The Inuit Art Quarterly, Teen Vogue and other publications. nîtisânak, Nixon’s memoir and first published book, is out now through Metonymy Press.
Born and raised in the prairies, they currently live in Tio’tia:ke/Mooniyaang—unceded Haudenosaunee and Anishinabe territories (Montreal, QC).

Stay for our Poetry Reading event with fabian romero, Demian DinéYazhi’ and Storme Webber following directly after the keynote after a short break.

Event: Poetry Readings 

Poetry Readings with fabian romero, Demian DinéYazhi’ and Storme Webber
Time: 8:00 – 9:30 PM
Location: grunt gallery
*Free and open to the public
For our poetry reading night, we’ve reached out to some of our kin south of the colonial border to share their work about love, sexuality, settler colonialism, fighting white supremacy, Radical Indigenous Feminisms and the complicated networks of our many intersecting identities. This night will include queer poet, filmmaker and artist fabian romero (Purepécha), transdisciplinary artist and activist Demian DinéYazhi’ (Naasht’ézhí Tábąąhá (Zuni Clan Water’s Edge) & Tódích’íí’nii (Bitter Water)), and internationally-nurtured poet, playwright, educator, and interdisciplinary artist Storme Webber (Alutiiq/Black/Choctaw).


SATURDAY, APRIL 20

Event: Beading & Reading w. Anne Riley

Time: 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Location: Massy Books, 229 E Georgia St, Vancouver
*Closed to 2SQ/Indigiqueer participants only
An informal reading event hosted by artist Anne Riley (Cree/Dene) inviting attendees to bring readings of works that have resonated with them or have produced themselves in a relaxed setting where we can work and speak together over beading/crafting projects within the Massy bookstore event space. The intention of this event is to hold space in which our conversations can feel unrestrained and without the scrutiny of non-Indigenous audiences that often forces a degree of performativity.

Event: Performance by Storme Webber and In Conversation with Afuwa

Time: 1:00 – 2:30
 PM
Location: grunt gallery
*Free and open to the public
Storme Webber (Alutiiq/Black/Choctaw) will be giving an extended performance from her previous nights reading and will follow-up with an In Conversation Interview with artist Afuwa (Guyana) whose current projects have focused on re-imagining relations across the Atlantic diaspora.


Event: Readings and In Conversation with Demian DinéYazhi’ and fabian romero

Time: 3:00 – 4:30 PM
Location: grunt gallery
*Free and open to the public
Presentation with Demian and fabian consisting of short readings of their work, presentations of their interests/practices and a dialogue between the two as artists/writers/activists.


Event: Concert w. With War/Mourning Coup/Kerub
Time: Doors 8:00 PM, Show 9:00 PM (End 12:00 midnight)
Location: KW Studios,  #10 – 111 Hastings St W, Vancouver
Cover: $10-$15 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds (sales from bar and door will be used to pay an honorarium for volunteers and then distributed amongst performers)
Three non-binary Indigenous performers, one face-melting night; we’ll start with Metis/Jewish electronic artist KERUB then fall into experimental electric MOURNING COUP aka Chandra Melting-Tallow (Siksika/mixed ancestry) and then top off the night with Portland vegan straight edge hardcore band WITH WAR, fronted by La Tisha Rico (Diné/Navajo) who in true straight edge form will also be giving a morning artist talk the following day.

SUNDAY, APRIL 21

Event: Artist Talk w. La Tisha Rico (of With War)
Time: 10:00 – 11:00 AM
Location: grunt gallery
*Free and open to the public
La Tisha Rico (Diné/Navajo) will present on their work as a musician and activist in decolonizing punk and DIY spaces within a queer and Indigenous identity that is beyond colonial definitions and limitations in colonial language.

Event: Community Discussion: Rural Indigiqueer Identities, hosted by Edzi’u
Time: 1:00 – 2:00PM
Location: grunt gallery
*Closed to 2SQ/Indigiqueer participants only.
Community discussion facilitated by performer Edzi’u (Tahltan/Tlingit) discussing queer Indigenous identities in rural situations; dating, isolation, mental health; will choose something from the archive to help centre the conversation by responding to how it does or does not reflect where we are now.

Event: Round Table Discussion: Intentions, with co-curators Whess Harman, Kali Spitzer and guests (TBD)
Time: 3:00 – 4:30
PM
Location: grunt gallery
*Free and open to the public
Round table discussion with co-curators Whess Harman (Carrier Witat) and Kali Spitzer (Kaska Dene) event discussing the interpretations and intentions in their practices and as programmers with several other artists/event organizers/curators.



Event: grunt Archive Screenings and Presentation with Lacie Burning
Time: 7:00 – 9:30PM
Location: grunt gallery
*Free and open to the public
In addition to a screening of several performances from the original Two-Spirit Cabaret held at the grunt gallery in 1993, Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) and Onondaga (patrilineal) artist Lacie Burning will be presenting their response to Denise Lonewalker’s Dancing for our Ancestors. With this event, we will be looking back through the archive in an effort to root ourselves in our own history and give acknowledgement to those who’ve made space for us and look forward in how to look at how those spaces are changing.

Downloadable schedule here:
Schedule-Together Apart-2019

Together Apart is supported by the First Peoples’ Cultural Council and the City of Vancouver Creative City Strategic Grant Program. grunt gallery acknowledges the ongoing support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia, and the Audain Foundation for the Visual Arts.

ONE DAY ONLY! 10AM–10PM
Opening Reception: March 5, 2019, 7PM

Over the past two years, grunt gallery has been at work on the project Wordless – The Performance Art of Rebecca Belmore focused on her remarkable performance career. This legacy project begins with an all-day screening of, March 5, 1819, and the launch of her new website, rebeccabelmore.com

In 2008 Rebecca Belmore produced the video installation March 5, 1819 recreating the abduction of the Beothuk woman Demasaduit and the murder of her husband Nonosabasut by colonialist settlers in Newfoundland. This video installation is not a historical reenactment, rather the actors are in modern dress and Belmore questions what has changed over the past 200 years. March 5, 1819, was commissioned by The Rooms in St John’s and has also been exhibited in Ottawa and Toronto. Set at Red Indian Lake in central Newfoundland March 5, 1819 was filmed in Vancouver at Mount Seymour.

March 5, 2019, marks the 200th anniversary of these events. It was announced earlier this year that their skulls will be returned to the Canadian Museum of History from the University of Scotland.  As we grapple with reconciliation it is fitting to remember the history that brought us to this place.

grunt will celebrate the re-launch rebeccabelmore.com, a website documenting Rebecca Belmore’s career over the past 32 years. The new site features content that spans Belmore’s career in all media, taking the user deep into the heart of her practice.

From July 2 – August 3, 2019, grunt gallery will also present a photographic exhibition of five new performance photographs, and a book launch of Wordless – The Performance Art of Rebecca Belmore, in collaboration with the Audain Art Museum and Information Office.

Funded through a New Chapter grant, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Audain Art Museum, this project celebrates the important career of one of Canada’s most iconic artists.


Wordless – The Performance Art of Rebecca Belmore is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter program. With this $35M investment, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.

grunt gallery’s Succession Plan for the transition of Program Directors

Program Director Glenn Alteen has worked with grunt since its inception in 1984 and in May of 2020 will retire after 36 years in the position. In early 2018 the board and staff of the gallery began activating our Succession Plan designed to provide as little disruption to the organization as possible during the transition of Program Directors. Our informed and active Succession Committee consisting of current and former board members and staff were tasked with addressing hiring in relation to leadership succession. After extensive work, the Committee has unrolled a timeline and hiring process for the transition. The Committee continues to refine this process on an ongoing basis and will address any succession planning issues as they arise.

A year-long transition period is being planned for the new Program Director in order to provide a seamless changeover and to download grunt’s programming and funding processes and allow for introductions to long-term artists, supporters and funders. grunt incorporated a Management Transition Reserve Fund into annual budgets since 2016 to facilitate this transition.

Formed in 1984, grunt gallery has built a reputation on innovative and dynamic programming: exhibitions, performances, artist talks, publications and special projects that showcase work by contemporary Canadian and international artists. grunt focuses on work and artists that would otherwise not be seen in Vancouver. We are proud of our ability to act as an intersection between various cultural groups based on aesthetics, medium or identity. With emerging programs such as the Blue Cabin Residency and the Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen grunt is expanding and developing its range, providing artists with new and exciting opportunities and audiences with unique and important experiences.

The Program Director job call will be released on Friday, January 18, 2019. You can access information from grunt gallery’s website grunt.ca and follow grunt gallery news through our monthly newsletter and social media channels: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Contact Us:

Meagan Kus , Director of Operations

email: meagan at grunt dot ca
phone: #604-875-9516

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From artist editions to exhibition catalogues, find what you’re looking for in our newly designed online bookstore store.

From artist editions to exhibition catalogues, find what you’re looking for in our online bookstore store.

Get Four Faces of the Moon, ARCTICNOISE and Journey to Kaho’olawe for $45 (regular $65)!

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The Making of an Archive book is now available for purchase at our bookstore! The book is edited by Jacqueline Hoàng Nguyễn, grunt gallery’s Curator Vanessa Kwan and Archives Manager Dan Pon, with contributions by Liz Park, Gabrielle Moser, Fatima Jaffer, Dan Pon and Tara Robertson, Maiko Tanaka and an introduction by Vanessa Kwan. The publication is designed by Chris Lee.

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