ARCHIVES

Mural, Julie Mehretu, commission for Goldman Sachs

Tuesday July 11, 2017 at 7pm

This event takes place on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Peoples.

Does the tendency of our era to privatize public goods and make an upward redistribution of wealth have you feeling down? Do you feel your debt follow you in your shadow? Are you made restless by feelings of digital abstraction, the ubiquity of camera and screen in daily life a real monkey on your back? Ever try to relax and just watch the clouds pass by and in the clouds you register the serene face of Mark Zuckerberg smiling down on you? (Hello again, Mark). Are you over your data limit? Have you maxed out your credit card? And once again you’re late for yoga.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

We are delighted to invite you to a rare and transformational evening with RJ Basinillo.

Join us for the unique opportunity to sit with RJ as he discusses spiritual awakening and the transformation of consciousness. With his hallmark warmth, humour, and compassion, this evening will connect you with the peace and serenity that arises from living in the moment.

This is a one-night-only event and seating is limited. We welcome you to join us remotely via Facebook live if you are unable to attend irl.

This talk accompanies our current exhibition, Bad Flavour, Wonderful Taste

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RJ Basinillo is a writer who hasn’t published anything in years. Born at Vancouver’s Grace Hospital in 1988 towards the end of a long hot summer, he has lived here ever since. RJ used to play basketball with acclaimed Vancouver artist Jeff Wall. His most recent work involves cursing out heads of state and captains of industry on social media. Some of his influences include: the short fiction of Donald Barthelme, Leonard Michaels, and Deborah Eisenberg; the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop; the music of Ornette Coleman; the paintings of Kerry James Marshall; the sculpture of Brian Jungen; and the YouTube channels of Ballislife, Ballervisions, Hometownhoops, and Hoopmixtape. RJ is currently working a construction gig with a boutique framing company on houses very few Vancouverites could ever afford.

A Chinatown Block Party @ Chinatown Night Market
Yule Ken Lum
July 7-8

Join Centre A at the Chinatown Night Market, where we will be hosting various events and projects by artists and curators every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 6-10pm, from May 26-September 3.

Centre A and The Little Shop of Happenstance presents “A Chinatown Block Party” with artist Yule Ken Lum. Chinatown BLOCK Party is a community art project that uses wood blocks provided by the artist and decorated by participants. Together, the individual blocks make up a mosaic of images/words.

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Yule Ken Lum was born and raised in East Vancouver. He is a graphic designer turned Community Art Activist. He is self taught, with a special interest in painting, sculpting and street art. On a journey towards Art Advocacy, he works to fuse art and its creative processes with community development initiatives, believing that this combination can foster a sense of connection that crosses boundaries of age and culture.

!WOW! @ Chinatown Night Market

Simon Grefiel
June 16-19, 24,25*

*Please note that this project will not be happening on June 23.

Join CENTRE A at the Chinatown Night Market, where we will be hosting various events and projects by artists and curators every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 6-10 pm, from May 26 – September 3.

!WOW! is a KARAOKE platform created by Vancouver based Filipino artist Simon Grefiel for all folks to sing their hearts out! It features amazing hit songs from famous CHINESE and WESTERN music to go with amazing vocals.

Come and feel free to sing!

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Simon Grefiel is a Vancouver based Filipino artist. He is currently working towards his BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. He currently holds the position of Publications Intern at Centre A’s Reading Room and the Finlayson Collection of Rare Asian Art Books (2017).

Vending Experiment #1 @ Chinatown Night Market
Underground Assembly
June 9 – 11, 6-10 pm

Please join Centre A at the Chinatown Night Market, where we will be hosting various events and projects by artists and curators every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 6-10 pm, from May 26 – September 3.

This week we will be hosting local Chinatown/DTES artist collective Underground Assembly.

Underground Assembly’s repurposed vending machines in ‘Vending Experiment #1’, disrupt conventional notions of gallery spaces and art economies. Within these small containers, artists subvert roles and expectations, mediating their roles as artists, curators, business owners and fabricators. Satirizing the business of art and the quick and mass production of many items, these cultural dispensing machines sell affordable and consumable artworks including (fan)zines, tiny sculptures, text art, drawings, handmade toys and other creations.

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Underground Assembly is Juan Cisneros, Denise Holland and Pippa Lattey. Cisneros, Holland and Lattey graduated from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2016 and began sharing a studio in the Downtown Eastside shortly after. Their projects use sculptural, illustration and publication elements to create reflective

Juan Cisneros Neumann was born in México D.F. (currently renamed Ciudad de México). He spends his time searching for fresh tortillas and chiles in Vancouver B.C. Canada, which tends to be a futile activity. His love and passion for drawing have led him through a continual exploration with the medium, be it animation, photography, sculpture, food and installation.

Denise Holland is a Canadian artist who lives and works in Vancouver. Using predominantly sculpture and text, she often turns ideas literally upside down, inside out and backwards to see them in a different way. Holland seeks to disrupt the original meaning of objects in order to draw attention to alternative views.

Pippa Lattey is an artist working out of Vancouver. Her sculptures display an economy of form punctuated with surges of colour, movement and sound. Lattey selects materials and found objects for their formal qualities and emotional appeal: party balloons, christmas decorations, textiles, food.

This project is funded in part by the DTES Small Arts Grants Program and Vancouver Foundation.

No Shoes Reading Room / PAPAG @ Chinatown Night Market
Christian Vistan and Simon Grefiel
May 26-28, June 2-4, 2017, 6-10 pm

Please join us at the Chinatown Night Market, where Centre A will have a booth with diverse programming every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 6-10 pm, from May 26 – September 3.

We will host a range of events and projects by artists, writers and curators, starting off with Christian Vistan and Simon Grefiel’s No Shoes Reading Room / PAPAG.

Vistan and Grefiel’s “No Shoes Reading Room / PAPAG” features a 7×7′ papag built for the occasion and a selection of literature curated by Vistan and Grefiel from Centre A’s Library and Reading Room.

A papag is a platform usually made of bamboo, used for sitting and sleeping in the Philippines and other parts of Asia. The papag and the No Shoes Reading Room function as a communal space for visitors at this summer’s return of the Chinatown Night Market.

Come by this weekend, May 26-28, and next June 2-4, from 6-10 pm and take a seat in the shade upon the papag, take off your shoes and read.

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Christian Vistan is a Vancouver-based Filipino Canadian artist originally from Bataan, a peninsular province in the Philippines. He has exhibited in Atlanta, Nashville, Boston and Vancouver. He recently completed his BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. He currently holds the position of Curatorial Assistant at Centre A.

Simon Grefiel is a Vancouver based Filipino artist. He is currently working towards his BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. He has held the position of Publications Intern at Centre A’s Reading Room and the Finlayson Collection of Rare Asian Art Books (2017).

Image: “Papag” proposed basic bed support made of wood by fabs V.
Credit: 3dwarehouse.sketchup.com

Artist Talk: Mehran Modarres and Qahraman Yousif
Centre A
May 6, 2017, 3 pm

Join us this Saturday at 3pm, for a pair of artist talks by Mehran Modarres and Qahraman Yousif. Modarres and Yousif will be speaking about their respected practices and the works included in SPRING EXHIBITION.

We would like to acknowledge that this talk takes place on the unceded territories of the Squamish, the Tsleil Waututh, and the Musqueam Peoples.

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Mehran Modarres is a visual artist and educator living in Vancouver, BC. Her practice investigates notions related to preservation and loss of cultural identity by exploring the degradations and disruptions of translation, migration, and cultural displacement. She received her BFA in Visual Art and BA in Art Education from the University of British Columbia. Modarres is a graduate candidate of Emily Carr University of Art + Design’s Low-Res Master’s Program. Her works have been exhibited at Cityscape Art Gallery, North Vancouver, and in several group exhibitions at Surrey Art Gallery, and recently at the Concourse Gallery as part of the graduate interim exhibition at Emily Carr University.

Qahraman Yousif is a Kurdish artist and activist born in Syria in 1964. He studied history at Damascus University and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from the University of the Fraser Valley. An active poet and writer, he was Chair of Kurdish Theater Association, Buhar, and one of the founding members of Syrian Student Theater in Al Hasakh province. His most recent installation, Lodge 179, is a work based on his first-hand experience as a prisoner following his arrest in Syria 1992. Memory is the main source of most of his artworks; wherein he addresses both what is cruel and painful, as well as the bright and beautiful. He does not limit himself to one medium, as he believes that the idea defines the materials necessary for the artwork. He is a member of the Cyprus Artists Association (Skala) and has had several art exhibitions in Syria, Cyprus, and Canada.

Anti-Racist Mathematics and Other Stories
Byron Peters
April 29, 2017, 3 pm
Centre A

At the Annual Conservative Party Conference in 1987, Margaret Thatcher declared: “Children who need to count and multiply are being taught anti-racist mathematics, whatever that may be.”

Anti-Racist Mathematics and Other Stories is a presentation of tales from the history of mathematics, global power and communication technologies. From the notion of a ‘science of revolt’ declared by Brad Werner and contextualized by Donna Haraway, the history of the algorithm from al-Khw?rizm?, Karl Marx’s mathematical manuscripts, to IBM’s present-day algorithm that is cited to distinguish refugees from terrorists, this talk will speculate on the make-up of technical languages and what they could become.

We would like to acknowledge that this talk takes place on the unceded territories of the Squamish, the Tsleil Waututh, and Musqueam Peoples.

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Byron Peters is an artist and writer of Chinese-Canadian and European descent. His practice critically engages labour and materiality in the context of emerging technologies; economic imaginaries; prison education; and the effects of gentrification and displacement. A participant in Centre A’s Centre B Studio Residency in 2016, his recent research investigates the shifting geographies in Vancouver in relation to social histories of exodus and succession, and speculative notions of ‘the crowd.’ Peters’ works take the forms of sound, video, sculpture, and writing, and have been presented at Oi, Hong Kong; ICA Miami; The Southbank Centre, London; The White Building, London; The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco; and The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York.

Image: Math homework at Beaver Ridge Elementary School, Georgia, USA. Credit: WSB-TV