The 12th annual Queer Arts Festival (QAF), Vancouver’s artist-run, professional, multi-disciplinary roister of queer arts, culture and history, takes place July 16 – 26, 2020 with this year’s theme: Wicked.
Art keeps us connected, especially during the age of physical distancing. The QAF and SUM Gallery are committed to artists amid the COVID-19 pandemic, with staff working (from home) to maintain the integrity of the programming. The reimagined festival makes sure audiences can get their Queer Art fix, from a distance. Visit queerartsfestival.com to find out how you can experience all of the QAF events remotely
QAF’s Wicked reimagines identity politics, exposing the implications of homonormativity as erasure. This past decade has seen the mainstreaming of gay; sexual difference wins approval so long as it is palatable, marketable, and doesn’t stray too far from what’s viewed as mainstream taste and morality.
There’s no place like home for the Wicked Witch of the West, green by devilment and through her magical aberrance. QAF 2020 forsakes the yellow brick road that leads only to a man behind a curtain gentrifying our desires. Instead, QAF revels in the quintessentially queer traditions of scandal and excess with visual art, performance, theatre, music, dance and literary events!
QAF 2020 kicks off with Art Party! – Cinq-a-Sept Festival Opening Reception on Thursday July 16, from 5 – 7pm. Join in on a Visual Art tour with curator Jonny Sopotiuk, guest artists, and a gallery of intimate friends old and new. Wrapping up, the Festival closing reception, Glitter is Forever – Pajama Party takes place Sunday July 26, 2020. Highlights over the 11 day festival include Jonny Sopotiuk’s visual arts curation; choreographer Noam Gagnon’s raucously vulnerable Swan Song, This Crazy Show; Indigenous Burlesque with Virago Nation’s Too Spirited; and the latest offering from non-binary drag collective The Darlings.
For the full line up and ticket registration visit queerartsfestival.com