Solarpunk Zine Making as a Ritual of Grief

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Solarpunk Zine Making as a Ritual of Grief

I’m hunched over a folding table at Enabling Arts. Marker ink on my first zine spread is still wet; it mingles with the deep-fried scent drifting off the Jollibee chicken and fries I’ve saved for later. Snip, snip—someone’s scissors keep a heartbeat beside me. On the page, I’ve written: i feel guilty while others suffer in quiet rooms. but grief and joy can live together after Lapu Lapu Day. Zine making, I’m learning, is a space where comfort and agitation coexist.

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Empanadas Ilegales’ new album Sancocho Trifásico is an ode to Latin history, musical traditions, and culture

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Empanadas Ilegales’ new album Sancocho Trifásico is an ode to Latin history, musical traditions, and culture

“Our goal is to break the design flaw,” says Daniel Hernandez Pinto, bassist for the Vancouver-based band, Empanadas Ilegales. Hernanadez Pinto and Daniel Ruiz, two members of their nine piece ensemble, had met me virtually; I was sun soaked in Jalisco practicing my Spanish when we arranged to meet. They made me miss Vancouver, meeting me with the kind of warmth needed in a city still raining on the precipice of June. 

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Sell Out, A Series: 5 Questions with Joy Gyamfi

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Sell Out, A Series: 5 Questions with Joy Gyamfi

Sell Out is a series by interdisciplinary artist Angela Fama (she/they), who co-creates conversations with individual artists across Vancouver. Questioning ideas of artistry, identity, “day jobs,” and how they intertwine, Fama settles in with each artist (at a local café of their choice) and asks the same series of questions. With one roll of medium format film, Fama captures portraits of the artist after their conversations.

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Strollology: The Bipedal Art of Letting Go

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Strollology: The Bipedal Art of Letting Go

It is Thursday and raining, again, in Vancouver. Or rather, it is teary out. Street lights are blurred by mist as I walk beneath them. I can make out the soft dripping of water against weakened leaves and car roofs. Everything is an orchestra here in the Pacific Northwest, even the nearby echo of teenagers strutting down the parallel laneway. 

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Sell Out, A Series: 5 Questions with Yvonne Chew

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Sell Out, A Series: 5 Questions with Yvonne Chew

Sell Out is a series by interdisciplinary artist Angela Fama (she/they), who co-creates conversations with individual artists across Vancouver. Questioning ideas of artistry, identity, “day jobs,” and how they intertwine, Fama settles in with each artist (at a local café of their choice) and asks the same series of questions. With one roll of medium format film, Fama captures portraits of the artist after their conversations.

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What Keeps The Art(ists) Alive?: Reflections on Play It Loud! and Creating Art in Vancouver

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What Keeps The Art(ists) Alive?: Reflections on Play It Loud! and Creating Art in Vancouver

In the Vancouver spoken word scene, Johnny Trinh, Vancouver Poetry House artistic director, is well known for reminding poets and audiences that “it takes a community to raise an artist.” As a veteran of many poetry shows in Vancouver and throughout the country, I have had many opportunities to ruminate on the meaning of this phrase; in particular, its invocation of the collective as the inherent foundation by which a poet, or any type of artist, nurtures the sort of self and worldly awareness that makes artistry viable and valuable. I am also reminded of author and cultural critic bell hooks’ assertion: “I think that part of what a culture of domination has done is raise that romantic relationship up as the single most important bond, when of course the single most important bond is that of community.”

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Dreaming as Resistance in Ghinwa Yassine’s “Seeing Double”

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Dreaming as Resistance in Ghinwa Yassine’s “Seeing Double”

I arrive at Morrow carrying the fatigue and pain of a long day spent in my chronically ill body. The winter sun has already set and the lights are turned low. As meditation music plays in the background–a gentle massage for my ears–I tiptoe my way through a maze of potted plants and lamps, familiar to looking for a seat in a friend’s living room. There is a bed at the front of the room, adding to this cozy, home-like feeling; a dip in its middle echoes the weight of past bodies held in its embrace. Though it is technically “on stage,” the bed marks clearly that this space is not just a performance venue, but rather is being re-imagined as a home, or perhaps even a sanctuary. 

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Sell Out, A Series: 5 Questions with Kevin Jesuino

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Sell Out, A Series: 5 Questions with Kevin Jesuino

Sell Out is a series by interdisciplinary artist Angela Fama (she/they), who co-creates conversations with individual artists across Vancouver. Questioning ideas of artistry, identity, “day jobs,” and how they intertwine, Fama settles in with each artist (at a local café of their choice) and asks the same series of questions. With one roll of medium format film, Fama captures portraits of the artist after their conversations.

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