Queer Arts Festival in Vancouver

The 11th Annual Queer Arts Festival (“QAF”), Vancouver’s artist-run, professional, multi-disciplinary roister of queer arts, culture and history, takes place this year from June 17 to June 28, 2019.

Queer Arts Festival in Vancouver

This year’s festival theme rEvolution gathers together artists who dissemble, push and transgress; art as the evolution of the revolution. QAF has assembled nearly 100 artists and more than 20 events and programming showcasing a variety of differing media on exhibit at the Roundhouse Arts Centre (181 Roundhouse Mews) in Vancouver’s Yaletown.

Here are some event highlights:

Art Party! Gala Opening Reception
Tuesday, June 18, 2019 @7:00pm
Roundhouse Exhibition Hall (181 Roundhouse Mews)
Tickets: Free
QAF opening night galas are one of Vancouver’s best attended visual arts events, making this a party you don’t want to miss!

Technical Knockouts
On now until Saturday, June 22, 2019
Roundhouse Community Centre (181 Roundhouse Mews) Roundhouse Community Centre (181 Roundhouse Mews)
Tickets: Free
A female-centred music production drop-in lab for queer, Indigenous and allied youth led by Kinnie Starr, DJ O Show and Tiffany Moses. ASL interpretation available upon request.
Calling all queer, Two-Spirit, and allied poets, lyricists, performers, truth-tellers and music-makers! Want to take your passion for words and music in a new direction? The Queer Arts Festival is here to help with the return of Technical Knockouts Emerging Artist Lab; a free, creative workshop series that invites you to tell your story, experiment, and access professional resources and mentors.

Relational Revolutions – Visual Art Exhibition
Monday, June 17 to Wednesday June 26, 2019 
Roundhouse Community Centre (181 Roundhouse Mews)
QAF’s signature curated visual art exhibition for 2019, Relational Revolutions, posits a rumination on the theme of rEvolution and extends an invitation to recalibrate our desires, how we hope, how we sense, how we love, and above all to re-examine our relationships with each other, with the land, with time, with form and with space. Curator Elwood Jimmy, of the Thunderchild First Nation, is an artist, facilitator, cultural manager and writer. This exhibit will showcase an eclectic array of artists including Thirza Cuthand, Raven Davis, Vanessa Dion Fletcher, Alexandra Gelis, Jessica Karuhanga, Lisa Myers, David Ng, Jessa Chse, and Ty Sloane.

Diaspora with the Frank Theatre
Tuesday, June 25, 2019 @ 7:00pm
Tickets: Pay what you can
Roundhouse Exhibition Hall (181 Roundhouse Mews)
The Frank Theatre presents a reading of Diaspora: an interdisciplinary, devised performance created by queer refugees and immigrants.

Queer Songbook Orchestra
Friday, June 28, 2019 @ 7:00pm
Tickets: $30-$40
Roundhouse Exhibition Hall (181 Roundhouse Mews)
Celebrated national chamber ensemble Queer Songbook Orchestra unearth the queer backstories and personal narratives inspired by music of the past several generations. Weaving together stories told by local narrators with arrangements by Canada’s foremost composers.

Stonewall 50 Glitter is Forever
Friday, June 28, 2019 @ 9:00pm
Roundhouse Exhibition Hall (181 Roundhouse Mews)
Tickets: Free with your Songbook ticket, otherwise $15-$20
On the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots that launched modern-day Pride, Vancouver Pride Society, Zee Zee Theatre, and The Frank Theatre join QAF’s final blowout, gathering together to revel in a half- century of queerevolution. Stonewall was a riot – now, we dance!

For more information, follow the QAF on Twitter and Facebook.