2009–2010 Season

For more info about any of the following events, please contact Kristen at gm at powellstreetfestival.com or 604.683.8240.

Spatial Poetics IX
Friday, July 9, 2010
Doors open at 7pm, performance at 7:30 pm
at VIVO Media Arts Centre (1965 Main Street)
Tickets $12, $10 for seniors and students
Info and tickets: 604.683.8240 or gm at powellstreetfestival.com
Featuring premieres of collaborative pieces by:
Catrina Longmuir with Asa Mori & Alison Maddaugh:
おこさまランチ(Okosama lunch)
Ray Hsu with Tetsuro Shigematsu: The Way of Ray
Michale Mori with mark MacGregor & Imam Habibi: Nothing is Free

Check out the Spatial Poetics IX blog

The Powell Street Festival presents Spatial Poetics IX, an interdisciplinary event celebrating collaboration, experimentation and innovation by a diverse line-up of artists.

Curated by Naomi Horii, this ninth edition of Spatial Poetics premieres interdisciplinary artwork by Catrina Longmuir with Asa Mori and Alison Maddaugh, Ray Hsu with Tetsuro Shigematsu, and Michael Mori with Mark MacGregor and Iman Habibi. This year, artists explore personal identities through performative practices, such as the collective creation of a performing personality, reliving memories on film and video, and testing romanticized stereotypes of the culturally specific performer. As if searching for a sense of authenticity, the artists collect the corny, recollect the surreal, and dismember the lines that narrate the interior/exterior experiences of the artist-body.

In Okosama lunch, landscape architect/artist Maddaugh, animator/artist Mori, and filmmaker Longmuir explore ideas of natsukashii or nostalgic sentiments by projecting pictures and animations onto sculptural elements. The performance/video piece The Way of Ray finds writer Hsu and theatre artist Shigematsu dissecting the relationship between art, propaganda, and the cult of personality. And in Nothing is Free, opera singer Mori plays out ideas about Japanese and Canadian stereotypes with musical assistance from flautist MacGregor and percussionist Habibi.

Spatial Poetics IX is a pre-festival event for the 34th Annual Powell Street Festival, held in Oppenheimer Park and the Firehall Arts Centre on July 31st and August 1st, 2010.

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Chez D
Migration Foods by Artists Donning Chef Hats

May 31, 2010 at 7 pm
Gudrun Tasting Room
150-3500 Moncton Street, Steveston Village in Richmond
Tickets $35 – $40 (advance purchase only)
604.683.8240
Download the Menu

Local artists trade their instruments and paint brushes for chef hats in Chez D, where art and cuisine meet in a tantalizing feast for the senses.

For one night only, artists normally accustomed to wowing audiences in theatres and galleries will don their chef hats and coats at Gudrun Tasting Room in Steveston and create new works of edible art celebrating the theme of migration.

Commissioned by the Powell Street Festival, Chez D artists will plate delicacies in a five-course menu that pays homage to ethnic roots, migratory paths, new lands, family restaurants and neighbourhood survival foods. As event curator Michael Speier puts it, Chez D (aka Chez Diaspora) presents “a meal full of strong cross currents and pollinations here at the tastebud’s edge of the Pacific Ocean.”

Chez D artists include Open Sesame (Michael Speier), Komodo House (Margaret Gallagher and Angela Wan), Patrick Tubajon (Gudrun Tasting Room), Ari Tomita, and Cynthia Low & Leslie Komori. Vancouver’s favourite Asian conceptual synth pop duo Guimauves will perform during the night.

Chez D takes place at Gudrun Tasting Room (150-3500 Moncton Street) on May 31, 2010. The tasting commences at 7:00pm. Tickets are $35 – $40 and can be obtained through advance purchase only.

The Powell Street Festival Society gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Canadian Heritage, the Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council and the Province of British Columbia, and the community support of ExplorAsian.

For tickets or more information, call 604.683.8240 or email gm at powellstreetfestival.com.

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Powell Street Festival Society and Blim present

Kaori Kasai: Ura Monchan

March 4 – 27, 2010
OPENING Thursday, March 4, 2010, 8:00 – 11:00 pm
ARTIST TALK @ 8:30pm
FLIM NIGHT: Films curated by artist Kaori Kasai, Friday, March 26, 8:00 – 11:00pm
Blim, 197 E. 17th Ave, Vancouver
More information: 604.683.8240
Download the full press release

Powell Street Festival Society and Blim present the exhibition Kaori Kasai: Ura Monchan. Using androgynous characters, Kasai creates storyboards of short vignettes about kinship, alienation, emotional boundaries and our interactions with physical environments. During her artistic residency/exhibition, Kasai will present new paintings and print-based works, curate a Flim night (film event) on March 26th, and produce a limited edition screen printed shirt available at Blim.

Kasai’s new works in Ura Monchan include paintings and prints of a character named Monchan. Monchan is a complicated character whose name is derived from a combination of the Japanese colloquial term for monster, or “Mon,” and “chan,” the suffix used at the end of a name to denote endearment. Monchan reflects the artist’s struggles of acceptance and sense of self as a landed immigrant in Canada. This delightful character was conceived during a period of difficulty in Kasai’s life and became a source of comfort when the artist felt lonely or isolated. On the surface Monchan is the epitome of calmness, but on the inside, Monchan faces emotional turmoil. Unlike the eponymous character epitomized in Kasai’s forthcoming children’s book, Monchan’s Bag, Monchan is not perpetually cute, cuddly and happy. Entitled Ura Monchan, or “reverse side of” Monchan, this exhibition reveals the behind-the-scenes version of Kasai’s child-friendly Monchan. Ura Monchan depicts a complex, non-gender specific, and self-questioning character who represents Kasai’s struggles with self-expression in an often-alienating culture.

Kasai 2010 children’s book, Monchan’s Bag, is published by Simply Read Books. Her works have been exhibited at Giant Robot, Little Otsu and SOMARTS (San Francisco), Compound Gallery (Portland), gallery 1 (Japan), and the Powell Street Festival (Vancouver) at Helen Pitt Gallery.

On opening night, Thursday, March 4, Kasai will give an artist talk at 8:30 pm. Kasai will also curate FLIM night on Friday, March 26. Come watch Kasai’s selection of films, and view new works produced during her residency at BLIM; entry fee: sliding scale of $7 – $10. Blimited: Limited Edition Screenprinted shirt by Kaori Kasai available at Blim for month of March. Images available upon request.

This is the launching event for the Powell Street Festival’s 2010 season of events. Follow us on Twitter @ http://twitter.com/powellstfest Blim: www.blim.ca

Media contact: Kristen @ 604.683.8240 or gm at powellstreetfestival.com

The Powell Street Festival Society gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, Department of Canadian Heritage, and City of Vancouver Office of Cultural Affairs.

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