W2 Evening of Vancouver Writers and readers and artists and viewers, etc., etc.,

BLOG POST posted on February 8, 2010 by Stineographer

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I was very happy to attend a reading at 112 West Hastings. (Is it Perel Gallery? Is it the W2 Culture and Media House? Find out for yourself at: www.creativetechnology.org) There were writers and artists, publishers and prizes! I didn't win anything, but I almost convinced the guy sitting beside me to give me his prizes. AND it's an on-going series, so you can attend it yourself next Wednesday, Feb.10!

There are quite a few reasons why this event was great. I've found (after having lived in Toronto) that this city can be a bit cliquey. When you go to a visual arts event, most of the people attending are part of the visual arts community. Likewise, when you attend a literary event. Sometimes there are even sub-cliques (prose writers who don't associate with poets). There doesn't seem to be a lot of cross-pollination. But this reading was different! There were curators from the Vancouver Art Gallery and they discussed their choices regarding the current exhibition, 

VISIONS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA: A LANDSCAPE MANUAL

Bruce Grenville even mentioned the fact that he doesn't enjoy reading poetry! 

Robert Chaplin, huckster/artist/writer read from his latest illustrated masterpiece. 

Poet, Kevin Spenst, shared his latest tweets with us. And Brendan McLeod closed the evening with a song.

It was a great mix. 

Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that this may be the last non-accredited media outlet in the history of the Olympic Games. What does this mean? Well, if you are a non-accredited journalist (and I think all of us are potentially non-accredited journalists) from somewhere other than Vancouver, presumably your best bet is Robson Square or the Main Branch of the Vancouver Public Library. Personally, I'd go with the library, if you're associated with any sort of print media, check out the links to learn why. OR there's W2. I'm not entirely sure what facilities they'll have available for non-accredited journalists during the Olympics but I'm willing to find out. In terms of space, there's the Perel Gallery, which doesn't seem to have its own website (ah, well, neither do I). I do know that during the Olympics, W2 is where it's at. There are all kinds of things happening in and around these newly renovated spaces. 

Anyway, on with the evening's entertainment. That's right. I'm going to describe it to you in as much detail as I can manage. Host, Sean Cranbury, got things going shortly after 7pm with writer, Richard Van Camp, who taught us how to call and deal with the Northern Lights (we're talking about the natural phenomenon here, not the music band). Then he read an excerpt from his story, "Love Walked-In" (a mullet-fluffing excerpt, to be precise). He also mentioned the fact that he's been collecting stories from elders for some time now and if we email him, he's happy to send these stories to us. I think that's a great idea.

Next up was John Burns' discussion panel with Bruce Grenville, Emmy Lee, and Scott Steedman about the latest exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery, "Visions of British Columbia: a Landscape Manual". This exhibition features a collection of art made by British Columbian artists. Accompanying this exhibition is the publication of a catalogue that features text written about British Columbia. This book was published in an effort to answer the question, "What is it to understand British Columbian culture at this moment?" John Burns (who originally moved to B.C. from Calgary) started out by mentioning his feeling that British Columbia tends represent a place that goes beyond the known. With that in mind, he asked his panellists (who all worked on the publication of the catalogue for this exhibition) what "A Landscape Manual" meant to them. The first response of Lee and Grenville was to reference the booklet produced by Jeff Wall in 1970. Grenville began to talk about the transition that took place in contemporary art after 1969. Conceptual art was becoming more popular, and photography increasingly became a medium in which conceptual artists needed to work. This lead Burns to question the personal process that his panellists go through when looking at a new piece of art. Lee's explanation dealt with how well she knew the artist in question and the trajectory in which the piece would be situated. Burns (who frequently writes about food) likened this experience to a new tasting experience; one may know nothing of the chef who prepared the dish, but certain ingredients will stand out no matter what. Lee responded that this was one reason why they'd wanted to pair a different kind of text with the visual images in the exhibition catalogue. Rather than publishing essays on the artists or the work, they chose to open up a plurality of interpretations for readers and viewers. Steedman liked the idea of trying to focus on a similar theme or moment when matching text to image. Burns felt that this made the collection of images more accessible to an audience who might not be steeped in artspeak (I'm paraphrasing here). Steedman mentioned the fact that during this process his appreciation for poetry was increased because it was more difficult to extract a bit of prose in order to match it up with a visual counterpart. Good poets are adept at capturing and defining moments that prose authors may not find an opportunity to use in a given narrative arc. Burns began to wonder how the panellists were able to cope with the difficult task of situating early native British Columbian artifacts within a continuum that leads up to today's contemporary pieces. Grenville returned to the question of who we, as British Columbians, are in this moment. Our art history in this province depends up on a foundation of native artists like Charles Edenshaw and Willie Seaweed. They were answering the same question.

I don't know about you, but I can't wait to read that book. 

To be continued...