Reading Flow: Lois Klassen with Karen and Peggy Ngan, and other participants
Friday, September 8 at 7 PM – 10 PM
Red Gate Society, 855 E. Hastings, Vancouver, British Columbia V6A 1R8
YACTAC’s pop-up September exhibition launches the latest chapbook in Lois Klassen’s current publication project, Reading the Migration Library. Entitled Flow, this chapbook has been assembled through conversation and collaborative imagining between Klassen and Karen and Peggy Ngan of YACTAC. In this exhibition, Flow is presented as both a wall-based work and an easy to assemble chapbook that will be available for exhibition visitors to make and take away. Flow will be added to a growing collection of easily reproduced chapbooks which make up Klassen’s project.
Reading the Migration Library is an archive of multi-form publications (images, poetry, narrative texts, and more) that describe personal experiences with human migration and displacement. This collection is designed for easy distribution and public circulation. Other publications from Reading the Migration Library will be available for visitors to assemble and take away or to locate on-line browsing and reading.
Lois Klassen is a Vancouver-based artist and writer whose work combines research and creative methods. Her projects, including Renegade Library, Comforter Art Action and Slofemists (in collaboration with Lori Weidenhammer), combine collective actions with public dialogue and exchange. Her texts have appeared in Word Hoard, Fillip Magazine, Public Journal, Border Crossings, LIVE! Performance Art Biennale blog, and more. Her work has been hosted by Anvil Centre, Santa Fe Art Institute, Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art and Plug In Summer Institute in Winnipeg, Banff New Media Institute, SOMA Summer Institute in Mexico City, Charles H. Scott Gallery (Emily Carr University), University of Salford in Greater Manchester, Glenbow Museum, Western Front, Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba and more. Klassen is currently a doctoral student of Cultural Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.
Reading the Migration Library has been hosted by Anvil Centre’s Artist in Residence program and the Santa Fe Art Institute Immigration/Emigration Residency. It is supported by Graduate Research-Creation/Community-Based Research and Action Fund, Cultural Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.
The growing list of Reading the Migration Library participants (authors and content contributors) includes:
Deanne Achong, Oana Capota, Frederick Cummings, Margaret Dragu, Francisco Fernando Granados, Alan Hill, Sandeep Johal, Kaitlin Kazmierowski, Sarah Klassen, Franci Louann, Graham McGarva, Mistiko (Dawn Livera), Karen Ngan, Peggy Ngan, Christine Riek, Kattia Samayoa, Natasha Sanders-Kay, Elisa Yon