Workshop on Japanese Brush Painting

Lead by Ari Tomita 

As part of a series of events in the gallery, Ari Tomita, one of the world's foremost avant-garde calligraphic brush artists, will lead a workshop on Japanese brush painting, sharing her knowledge of this traditional artistic practice.

As Tomaita describes the classes she teaches, "students in my workshops will experience the Oriental approach to time, space, and dynamic energy or “ki“ (spirit, energy, force),and will discover the rewards of painting with the ancient brush. They will learn to create Expressionist brush painting using the heart-mind and body connection to generate their own rhythm and harmony."

Ari Tomita studied Chinese calligraphy (kanji) and culture for several years with Sensei Hayashi, a Buddhist monk and brush master, receiving her shihon master certification from the Japan National Sho (brush) Association. This was followed by fifteen years of kana (Japanese calligraphy ) under National Art Treasure, Takako Oishi (1898-2000).

Collective Futures in the Downtown Eastside
Panel discussion by the desmedia collective

desmedia (downtown eastside media), a collective of artists committed to working on engaged collaborative arts projects with other residents and members of the DTES, began running drop-in workshops in May 2000. Describing their project as a “living archive”, desmedia challenged the “dominant media’s over-arching image of the DTES,” and facilitated the production of painting, video, photography, and text. Exploring ways of documenting life, histories, and the vitality and creativity of the area, the workshops provided an opportunity for the possibilities of self-expression, reflection, and self-representation. On the occasion of this exhibition, desmedia will reassemble their complete archive in the Audain Gallery, including a workstation, shelving, videotapes, paintings, and related ephemera, and discuss potential collective models and the dissolution or morphing of desmedia (and their archive) into another form. desmedia will host Collective Futures in the Downtown Eastside, a public forum where DTES artists and residents will be invited to discuss the successes and challenges of, and possible futures for, cultural collectives in the community. Although present in the gallery, the desmedia archive will not be available for public access, only on display.

Wednesday Night School: Introduction
Reading group developed by the art collective Coupe

The Audain Gallery invited the artist collective Coupe to reflect on the issues of agency and institutionality and the strained relationship between activism, artistic production, and the absorption of cultural production into what the collective calls “monopoly-capitalist development”. Under the title the Wednesday Night School, Coupe will facilitate a biweekly
reading group, following a reading list designed by the collective, for the duration of the exhibition. An opportunity for research and discussion, the reading group will also inform the production of a new text written collaboratively by the evolving members of Coupe. In addition to its regular meetings, the collective will hold four public meetings in the Audain Gallery as part of the Wednesday Night School.  A sign-up sheet to join the reading group, with contact information and a full schedule for the meetings, will be available in the gallery and by email at
unlimitedhumanstrike@gmail.com. Please follow this link for more information about the readings for the Wednesday Night School: Coupe.

Dalannah Gail Bowen

A live musical performance by jazz and blues singer Dalannah Gail Bowen. Bowen is an experienced, versatile, and dynamic performer with strong ties to the local community and significant national recognition.

Discussing Out of Bounds
Student-lead panel discussion on the Out of Bounds: Festival of Site-Specific Interventions held in the DTES

Running during the month of November, Out of Bounds was organized by Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte, an MFA student in the SCA at SFU. It features work by graduate and undergraduate visual arts students from the SCA. Students regularly travel across the DTES, moving between the two facilities the SCA uses for instructional and studio spaces. Although transitory, students are a regular, everyday part of the community of the DTES, even if they, themselves, do not recognize that relationship. Foregrounding their connection to and participation in the neighbourhood, Out of Bounds challenged students to engage actively and creatively in the area, producing a variety of site-specific interventions at different locations in the DTES. For Mapping the Everyday, Bourcheix-Laporte and the artists participating in Out of Bounds have been invited to host a panel discussion in the Audain Gallery to address their experiences realizing the festival and the multiple challenges of producing site-specific art in the DTES.

Jesus indian and The Langauge of Love
Film screening and discussion

red diva projects will screen and discuss their short film Jesus Indian, produced by red diva projects and Frog Girl Films. The Language of Love, a new documentary short by Marie Clements and Frog Girl Films about the life of Stephen Lytton, will also be screened and discussed.

Jesus Indian
8 minutes
2010
As part of red diva projects new creative initiative, the Prison Chronicles, Jesus Indian tells the "brown, down, and out" story of a jailed and dying "No-Name Aboriginal woman" and her fellow inmates, both real and spiritual. Together they embark on a "lyrical journey" towards "ultimate resurrection" revealing and challenging the "experiences that continue to en-cage them".

The Language of Love
Featuring Stephen Lytton
10 minutes
2012
The Language of Love is a ten-minute documentary featuring writer/actor/activist Stephen Lytton's raw and poetic articulation of the fourteen years he endured in the residential school system--a child's survival redefines itself as the artful embodiment of a man.

Jennifer Kreisberg is a Genie award winning singer, producer, composer, and frequent collaborator with red diva projects, such as on the music and lyrics for the short film The Road Forward. For this event, Kreisberg will perform new songs and talk about her music making practice, which is rooted in Southeast Indigenous musical traditions.

red diva projects
Performance of workshops by Marie Clements, Michelle St. John, and women from the DEWC

red diva projects is a collaboration between veteran artists Michelle St. John and Marie Clements, committed to deepening the vocabulary and aesthetic style of integrative Indigenous performance and creating and producing new innovative work. Drawing on Clements’ previous experience working with the DEWC, red diva projects will guide women from the Centre through a series of workshops that will explore the use of written words and vocables (non-lexical sound-words) to address the themes of isolation and incarceration. The outcome of these workshops will be a performance by red diva projects and the women of the Centre.