Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Gay in the Sub­urbs
By Adam Cristo­bal

This arti­cle appears in full in Sad Mag issue 7/8.

Every­one knows a Kurt Hum­mel story, a heart-felt or humor­ous story akin to that of Glee’s coiffed coun­tertenor. The sub­ur­ban ado­les­cent gay male is now cliché, and his tale a quin­tes­sen­tial part of high-school chron­i­cles. Such a tale’s tropes have been well estab­lished: It is usu­ally told as a tragic por­trait of an out­cast pro­tag­o­nist, brought to a dra­matic cli­max of homo­pho­bic con­flict, and pep­pered with awk­ward quips about some locker-room mis­un­der­stand­ing between said pro­tag­o­nist and some sul­try class­mate man­i­fest from hor­mon­ally charged pubes­cent dreams.You know that story, or at least a vari­ant of it.

But this—this is not that story. It is one thing for queer youth to grow up in the sub­urbs, but it is entirely another thing when LGBT fam­i­lies set­tle in the sub­urbs. Down­town Van­cou­ver and San Fran­cisco form two ends of one big West Coast rain­bow, but Vancouver’s vibrant LGBT com­mu­nity is vir­tu­ally nonex­is­tent in our city’s sub­urbs. Can LGBT fam­i­lies set­tle out­side the down­town core, in areas where the den­sity of queer indi­vid­u­als ebbs with the den­sity of other human beings? Is the rainbow-coloured picket fence pos­si­ble, and if it is, what are its impli­ca­tions for the LGBT com­mu­nity at large?

Three years ago, Nathan Pachal and Robert Bit­tner tied the knot in Lan­g­ley and have lived there ever since. Both hus­bands are in their late twen­ties, but nei­ther has lived in Van­cou­ver proper. Nathan works as a broad­cast tech­ni­cian; Robert is a Mas­ters can­di­date at the UBC Depart­ment of Eng­lish. The lat­ter com­mutes to cam­pus to study queer young-adult lit­er­a­ture. “Lan­g­ley doesn’t really have a dis­tinct LGBT com­mu­nity,” he tells me.…

Con­tinue read­ing in Sad Mag issue 7/8.

Photo: Laura Nguyen.

Jonathan Tag­gart, local pho­to­jour­nal­ist and edu­ca­tor with the Van­cou­ver Urban Native Youth Asso­ci­a­tion, opens his first solo show on Thurs­day, June 16th, at The Art­work Hub. “The Fric­tion of Dis­tance” presents a series of sto­ries from the In-SHUCK-ch Nation.

In-SHUCK-ch, a nation of small three bands from the lower Lil­looet River region, is in the final stages of nego­ti­at­ing a treaty with the BC and fed­eral gov­ern­ments; Taggart’s work explores “cul­tural and eco­nomic impli­ca­tions of isolation.”

Check out the video below! For more details visit The Art­work Hub.

The Fric­tion of Distance

The Net­work Hub (3rd Floor, 422 Richards St)

June 16th, 6:00PM-8:00PM

RSVP on Face­book

Photo by Grant Harder: Sad Mag #6

Sad Mag is proud to present “Doc­u­ment­ing Your Life: A Photographer’s Notes From the Field.” This is the first in our upcom­ing series of afford­able cre­ative work­shops for begin­ners, hob­by­ists, stu­dents and aspir­ing professionals.

Grant Harder is a Van­cou­ver free­lance pho­tog­ra­pher who has shot for Mon­o­cle, The Wal­rus, Van­cou­ver Mag­a­zine and the Globe and Mail’s Report on Busi­ness—among many more. He will be teach­ing some of his tricks of the trade, includ­ing how to see and think like a photographer.

At the Wal­dorf
Sat­ur­day, July 9 from 12 — 3pm
The Wal­dorf
Class fee is $20 (includes a take-home booklet)

Click to learn more or to reg­is­ter.

Parad­ing with­out a Permit

Michelle Reid: For the read­ers who haven’t picked up a copy of Sad Mag #6 yet, who is Rob Fougere?

Rob Fougere: I’m a pho­tog­ra­pher, artist and archivist.

MR: What’s it like see­ing your­self on the cover of a magazine?

RF: The Sad mag­a­zine cover was actu­ally the sec­ond time I’ve been pho­tographed for my mous­tache. The first was in New York mag­a­zine a few years ago on a trip. Sad was cool because it has national dis­tri­b­u­tion, so I had friends in Toronto call me to tell me that they saw it.

MR: How did you get started as a photographer?

RF: I’ve enjoyed tak­ing pic­tures always, and used to walk around with a dig­i­tal point-and-shoot cam­era tak­ing movies of the strange things I’d see going about my day-to-day. It wasn’t until I dis­cov­ered the magic of the dark­room that pho­tog­ra­phy took over my thought processes.

MR: What is the best pho­to­graph you have ever found?

RF: That’s a very tough ques­tion. I’ve got some really great found neg­a­tives and it’s hon­estly too hard to choose or describe them in words. The one photo that I’ll always hang on my wall no mat­ter where I live is a shot of my father from when he was 17 or 18 in a suit and tie with his hair combed over his ears. It’s a great stu­dio shot and in the per­fect brown card­board frame with gold trim.

MR: Tell us about your upcom­ing show, Parad­ing With­out a Per­mit. How did you curate the selected images? How long did you spend col­lect­ing them?

RF: I’m always really happy any­time that I can have my pho­tos seen out­side of the dig­i­tal realm. My prac­tice as a whole explores the pho­to­graph as cul­tural arti­fact and aes­thetic object. For this show I wanted to put together a set of images that cap­tured a spirit of beauty and self-reliance. It includes some of my best shots from the last three years of shoot­ing and some found neg­a­tives to fill in the gaps and give them some con­text in terms of recent his­tory and the nature of peo­ple, like “Some things don’t change!”.

MR: What’s the advan­tage of hav­ing an exhi­bi­tion at Col­lage Col­lage ver­sus a main­stream gallery space?

RF: Col­lage Col­lage will let me! When I start show­ing at big­ger gal­leries, I want to make sure I’m ready and that the shows are really good, and right now I still have too much to learn! The down­side to Col­lage Col­lage is that I have to make the show age appro­pri­ate, since it’s a kid’s art shop.

MR: What local pho­tog­ra­phers do you admire?

RF: Scott Pom­mier and Bent­ley Wilks take great pho­tos, both in terms of sub­ject mat­ter and style.

MR: Has any­one ever con­tacted you about a found neg­a­tive with its ori­gin story?

RF: Nope, although it’s going to be the first time most of the found pho­tos my Col­lage Col­lage show are seen in pub­lic… for the first time in fifty-years anyways.

MR: What are you work­ing on now?

RF: June is a busy month! Sarah Holtom and I are show­ing a dif­fer­ent set of work at Boucherat Gallery in Vic­to­ria the day after Parad­ing With­out a Per­mit opens. Sarah has painted some amaz­ing oil-on-wood por­traits in black-and-white to com­ple­ment my vin­tage pin-ups. We’re both also happy to be tak­ing part in the Cheaper Show again this year. I’ve also started a fram­ing busi­ness called PlainWoodFrames.com that is the offi­cial fram­ing shop of the Cheaper Show, so I expect to be very busy with that in the next few weeks!

Parad­ing With­out a Permit

Col­lage Col­lage (621 Kingsway)

June 9th, 7:00PM — 9:00PM

RSVP on Facebook

As more and more ears hear that DOXA, Vancouver’s Doc­u­men­tary Film Fes­ti­val, begins this Sat­ur­day, those infa­mous lists of must-sees become even more loaded with excited sug­ges­tions. To add to the frenzy that is a film fes­ti­val, we have com­piled another list of DOXA picks, just in case you wanted your list to become longer still. Click for full details, includ­ing times and locations.

The National Parks Project The epic beauty of Canada’s national parks is set ablaze by this cel­e­bra­tory film of Parks Canada’s cen­ten­nial. Film­mak­ers are paired with a myr­iad of Cana­dian musi­cians from Bro­ken Social Scene to God­speed You! Black Emperor to The Besnard Lakes and sent to the diverse land­scapes that are our national parks. Span­ning the moun­tain­ous lines of British Colum­bia to the illu­mi­nated grounds of Saskatchewan, the beauty of Canada’s rugged ter­rain is sure to be made more majes­tic with echo­ing Cana­dian voices.

Allan King’s Early Works Allan King is a mas­ter Cana­dian doc­u­men­tary film­maker and this unique glimpse into some of his ear­lier works is sure not only to please but also inspire. As King’s early doc­u­men­tary works dive into such Van­cou­ver issues as log­ging, skid row and Coal Har­bour, early traits of hon­esty, com­pas­sion, and inge­nu­ity slip into each scene, mark­ing the pro­lific film­maker King would become.

Wel­come to Pine Point Pine Point, a place frozen in time, is unearthed as part book, part film, and part photo album in DOXA’s Inter­ac­tive Doc­u­men­tary Screen­ing Room. If the price of admis­sion (free!) doesn’t peak inter­est, then the bit­ter­sweet, Micheal Gondry-esque por­trayal of a town and com­mu­nity nearly van­quished by time itself surely will.

Les­son Plan One of the most bizarre class exper­i­ments to ever take place, this film unrav­els as a class of 15-year-old stu­dents sub­di­vide into inform­ers and body­guards, guer­rilla fight­ers and power aggres­sors, and sub­ver­sive riot­ers and staunch ide­ol­o­gists all from the sim­ple slo­gan ‘Strength through Dis­ci­pline’. As the exper­i­ment of group con­trol spi­rals out of hand, pow­er­ful rev­e­la­tions about social con­trol and group dynam­ics are recounted by the 50-year-old par­tic­i­pants in this award-winning documentary.

Dar­win Recount­ing tales from a true ghost town whose past is dis­tant and future unclear, the lives of each indi­vid­ual is woven into a beau­ti­ful nar­ra­tive of regret, hope and under­stand­ing. Set to an achingly beau­ti­ful score, the haunt­ing images o f a town long gone are strik­ing and star­tling and become sin­cere as this dis­tinc­tive band of Cal­i­for­nia ex-cons, pagans, and min­ers reflect on iso­la­tion, cap­i­tal­ism, and val­ues that deter­mined their alienation.

DOXA Doc­u­men­tary Film Festival

At the­atres around Vancouver

May 6– May 15, 2011

Full fes­ti­val details here.