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Spatial Poetics X
July 7, 2011
7:30pm
SFU Woodward’s Studio D
Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
149 West Hastings St. Vancouver
Tickets $12/8 available at the door
Info: 604-739-9388
Featuring
laiwankwankage
Maiko Bae Yamamoto
Asa Mori in collaboration with Sam Scott
and a screening of video shorts
Celebrating its tenth year, Spatial Poetics celebrates collaboration and innovation in the use of text, visuals, music, and performance. This edition of Spatial Poetics is curated by event co-founders Cindy Mochizuki and Miko Hoffman and also serves as the launch of the Jukkai publication, a creative memoir of the history of Spatial Poetics. The evening will pair a variety of interdisciplinary artists to present critical works engaging in an exploration of rebirth and the grassroots experience. Premiering new works this year include laiwankwankage comprised of Laiwan (interdisciplinary visual artist and writer) collaborating with Eileen Kage and Vanessa Kwan; Maiko Bae Yamamoto (actor, writer, director) performing solo in collaboration with offstage special guests; and Asa Mori (animator) collaborating with Sam Scott in a live animation and sound performance. The event will also include a screening of video shorts by artists including Paul Wong, Leslie Supnet, Lydia Fu, Lesley Loksi Chan and more! We will also be tweeting a Movie A Day by filmmaker Midi Onodera on the Powell Street Festival Society Twitter feed for the month of July.
Please join us after the performance for the book launch and reception at Blim at 115 East Pender.
laiwankwankage
Combining a collaboration of dynamic artists — Laiwan, Vanessa Kwan and Eileen Kage — laiwankwankage is an interdisciplinary fusion of music spectacle, pomp and circumstance, freely interpreting rock improvisation with playfulness, noise, nonsense, swagger and bravado to daringly deconstruct expectation and stereotype.
Maiko Bae Yamamoto
Over the last 5 months, I have received the following things: 1. a performance about ghosts, 2. a mathematical super puzzle for my body, 3. a proposition, 4. a song from my childhood and 5. reassurance. These five things were all sent to me by my unknowing collaborators for Spatial Poetics. I never asked for these gifts. They were just put upon me, most with attention and love, and one with what I can only assume is complete randomness. As I started to think about them and how they might smash up together, what occurred to me is that they are all, in their own way, meditations on fear — of the unknown, of missing out, of failure, of things we have no control of. Of death. And I realize that fear has greatly influenced how I have lived my life, from the day in grade 2 when I first learned about tsunamis, to yesterday, when I watched my 3 year old son teetering on the curb of the sidewalk. This evening I will try, through introducing one gift to another, to beat the crap out of my fear. Or at least shove it back a notch.
Asa Mori and Sam Scott
A collaboration between Asa Mori and Sam Scott will peek into hidden worlds using live perfomed stop motion animation and projection.
Exit Upon Arrival
Paul Wong
In vertical split screen we see and hear two shifting views of the artist entering and exiting via a set of swinging doors. Going in and out of the light the top frame sees the performer in a wide shot, the bottom frame in medium range. The sequences were shot single camera, each of the two scenes are overlaid with the same scene running forward and backward.
Exit Upon Arrival was presented at One More Than Three at Mountainview Cemetery, part of Paul Wong’s ‘5’, a series of site-specific events commissioned by the City Of Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Public Art Program. www.5.paulwongprojects.com
The Animated Heavy Metal Parking Lot
Leslie Supnet
A stop-motion animated tribute to Jeff Krulik and John Heyn’s 1986 video documentary classic, Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Remaining faithful to no-budget film making, Supnet reconstructs her favorite scenes using cut-out characters made out of aged paper, glue and ink.
Permute
Lydia Fu
Our existential heroine, Lulu attempts to discover a cryptic fate that she is only able to solve through the oblique vignettes of a film noir cityscape. “Permute” is a four-minute animated short that depicts a young woman’s journey through a surrealist world fraught with mystery, anxiety and apprehension.
Curse Cures
Lesley Loksi Chan
The arrival of a new worker to a jeans factory causes changes to the rhythms of the workplace. This mysterious narrative integrates personal and collective history with fiction. The visuals were created with both found images and original photography reproduced on acetate sheets which were subsequently sewn together and projected onto a wall and video-taped. This mixed-media work is a reflection on the repetitive labour and materiality of textile work and the im/possibilities for resistance to challenging working conditions.
Wagon Burner
Terrance Houle
“Wagon Burner” examines what happens when a boy reclaims his identity through the simple act of destruction. The boy burns his wagon and dances to put out the flames. Music is done by Isho Bailey.
Houle’s images tell a story older than colonization: the power of resistance and remembrance.
Machine with Wishbone
Randall Okita
Machine with Wishbone is an entirely live action movie shot without special effects, featuring the breathtaking work of internationally celebrated artists. Using camera choreography, photo sculpture, and kinetic sculpture, we experience the tale of a stoic mechanical wishbone on its journey through a world of snoring beds, paper birds, and places you have to see to believe.
Movie A Day
Midi Onodera
Intended as a diminutive slice of life in short form, the daily movies provide a brisk commentary on the world around us – at times funny, often thought-provoking, sometimes unsettling.
Each day a new FREE short movie will be available online. Every movie is uniquely different and the collection spans a wide variety of subject matter and digital aesthetics. The shorts, running between 30 seconds and 1 minute, are shot with various consumer toy camera and digital video formats. Specifically designed and conceived for the tiny screen, the movies can be downloaded through iTunes and played on cell phones or iPods.
Inspired by an old newspaper concept – of “today’s thought” or “a smile a day”, these miniature movies are meant to be consumed daily, in between a coffee and a donut. They are designed as bite size video moments – an aperitif before a hearty meal.
If you still want more, visit www.midionondera.com for the FPS project. New movies are posted on the 1st and 15th of each month for 2011.
In partnership with West Coast Line and Asian Canadian Studies Society
CONTRIBUTORS
Baco Ohama and James Brown
Ashok Mathur
Lydia Kwa and Jason Sims
Natalie Purchwitz and collaborator
Sepideh Saii, Jaimie Robson and Maya Ersan
Trish, Cindy and Aretha (kitchen)
Laiwan
Shima Iuchi
WTP
Vanessa Kwan & Diyan Achjadi
Lyndsay Sung & Rafael Tsuchida
Hiromi Goto & Jason de Couto
Fred Wah
Ray Hsu & collaborators
Michael Mori & Iman Habibi
Madoka Hara & Lee Hutzulak
Catrina Longmuir
Mark Soo
ESSAYS
Cindy Mochizuki and Miko Hoffman
Kristen Lambertson
Naomi Horii
COVER
Kathy Shimizu
The Powell Street Festival Society gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Department of Canadian Heritage, the British Columbia Arts Council, the City of Vancouver through Cultural Services, the 125th Anniversary Grants Program, the Asian Canadian Studies Society and the Hamber Foundation.
