Artspeak is an exhibition and programming space encouraging dialogue between contemporary visual art and writing. Artspeak is committed to intersectional participation and exchange.
233 Carrall St
Vancouver BC V6B2J2
Wednesday-Saturday
12PM to 6PM
ov
On View
Curated as a part of Artspeak's Curatorial Residency with Fegor Obuwoma. October 18- December 14 2024. "The spirit has eyes toward longing" creatively envisions metaphysical philosophies through contemporary art. Guest curator Fegor Obuwoma examines the ways in which Afro-diasporic futurisms and Afro-cosmologies form a framework to speculate a spiritual aesthetic, embodying narratives of otherworldly realms, longing, collective/familial memory, ritual, and spirit presence. The interdisciplinary exhibition explores surreal methodologies as a conduit for redefining cultural practices and understandings of the world. Featuring artists Zainab Aliyu, Arafa Hamadi, Oreoluwa Akinyode, Curtis Talwst Santiago, Leo Robinson, and Ayomide Tejuoso, the works engage material technologies, forming a generative investigative visual lexicon of the inhabited and unknown. If spirit have eyes toward longing addresses radical futurity, and corporeality in an effort to think through the realities of the Black diaspora in the unfathomable aftermath of disaster; Trans-Atlantic slave trade, mass displacement, ongoing urban-global migration, colonization, centuries of severed cultural practices, belief systems, systemic oppression, and displaced histories.
Recent Publications
dissident 3: ART ACTIVIST MURMURINGS
"Spatial disruption of the body; a cathartic reintroduction to the newest version of myself" dissident is a quarterly art journal devoted to exploring community driven social practices. Writing against and alongside limiting institutional historical orientation, the series positions restorative literature, intimate recollection, transdisciplinary dialogue, and the production of knowledge and pedagogical practices through active engagements with progressive social movements central to the pursuit of complex curatorial engagement. dissident investigates human-centric, intersectional, and decolonial frameworks, bridging autonomous authorship or anecdotal, self-reflective writing with activism, political agitation, and obscure cultural practice. Documenting creative participatory re-shaping, redirection, resistance, refusal, and care, dissident invites guest writers to share research at various stages of progress- an exercise in disrupting evaluation and presentation and a gesture towards critical experimentation, innovation, and generative idea sharing.
Upcoming Programs
In conjunction with the exhibition The Spirit Has Eyes Toward Longing, the films in this program address radical futurity and corporeality in an effort to think through the realities of the Black diaspora in the unfathomable aftermath of disaster.
The Deliverance of Comfort dir. Zina Saro-Wiwa (2010) 7min
Black Lady Goddess dir. Chelsea Odufu (2019) 25min
Ele of the dark dir. Yace Sula (2021) 13min
Brave dir. Wilmarc Val (2021) 25min
Curated by Fegor Obuwoma
Film Screening
December 9 2024 6:10pm
VIFF CENTER
os
Off-site
Mia Glanz’s photo installation “Becky’s Purse” opens September 13, 2024 to December 14, 2024 at our offsite located on 320 Carrall St, Vancouver, BC V6A 1K2.
Artist Statement
“Becky’s Purse” is an archive of the contents of a hand bag, and the scribbled fragments of thoughts which could belong to the artist’s friend Becky, who lives with substance use and mental illness in Vancouver. A purse holds the tools which facilitate everyday life. In this sequence Mia attempts to build a homage to her friend’s identity in paraphernalia, the daily things Becky typically consumes, in the Y2K aesthetic, which she still channels in her dress and grooming from when they grew up together. A personal narrative is expressed, and so are questions about the environment which structures this narrative. The images in the archive are numbered like evidence in a crime scene. They are part of a process of looking, a search for a perpetrator and for the cause behind Becky’s illness. Photography facilitates the organization and preservation of reality to look and examine; this is the artist’s search because Becky herself wouldn’t care, wouldn’t see a problem in the same place. Her preoccupations are cataloged. Here is a document of seeing, and being seen.
Offsite is made possible by the generosity of the Cheeky Proletariat. If you are interested in exhibiting in the offsite please email office@artspeak.ca. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis.