It’s often hard to see formal institutions like universities as places that could hold space for the celebration of Queer and BIPOC arts. But even within these institutions, we can see a shining shift towards highlighting voices of underrepresented groups.

The UBC club Exposure intends to do just that. The student-led organization looks to build a conscious, creative community and accomplished exactly that through a month-long event called ARTIVISM: Queering the Self.

This series, directed by Bianca Santana, was a festival of creative resistance that explored ways of being in the digital era. Through student performances, webinars, parties, art exhibitions, drag shows and more, ARTIVISM showcased diverse activist art practices and dialogue

Ashnola’s Granular Ice (2021) by Esteban Pérez is a sound composition based on photographs used as scores. The work attempts to interpret images of complex soundwaves present in an ice layer into a sound piece

summer.

summer
summer
summer

all the other girls
are bitches. they speak with fluency i don’t
understand. they have a secret
stash of ice cream. they giggle in the mornings, warm
their lips on the grass. i watch with awkward feet.
i am fraudulent, half-wrong, but i want to be good.

the men, though––the men are tall, dark
and haptic,
just like everyone said they would be.