SAD Mag is an independent Vancouver publication featuring stories, art, and design. Founded in 2009, we publish the best of contemporary and emerging artists with a focus on inclusivity of voices and views, exceptional design, and film photography.
“I’m interested in what happens when these objects are in a room together. Most of the objects are unremarkable things that have deep meaning and rich stories—things like books, cups, teapots, pendants, rocks, etcetera. I’ve used my own style when re-creating these things—which includes elements of simplicity, delicacy, and whimsy—so the objects will be seen from a new perspective.”
“Suzette Amaya contains multitudes. She is at once urban and rural, traditional and contemporary, her indigenous identity—as it is with all other Indigenous people in Canada—an amalgamation of the pain of the past, the present uphill battle of passive racism, and a future focused around healing from the past and creating a better, more equitable society.”
So much of my youth was shrouded in silence: the silence of my parents’ experiences in World War II; the silence of sexual abuse; the silence of family dysfunction; the silence of growing up gay at a time when homosexuality had only recently been decriminalized and declassified as a mental illness; the silence of spending six years in a therapy that sought to change me into something that I wasn’t.
This restraining tether to an origin is a common theme in the art world’s discussion of photoconceptualism broadly, especially in Vancouver: today, 40 years after Girard began capturing incredible colour photography of the city’s neon lights at night, we are still invited to major gallery openings to look at art that perpetuates the same narrative, and celebrates the same people. Jeff Wall owns the lightbox, and the “pioneers” of photoconceptualism own Vancouver photography and in some ways, Vancouver art.
Our Cheese issue launches May 27th at Make and features a poem by Selina Boan. Here on the web, we've got another poem by this brilliant young poet for you.
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