Curated by Raymond Boisjoly + Jordan Wilson
Featuring/works by Raven Chacon, Adam + Zack Khalil, Chandra Melting Tallow, Krista Belle Stewart, Sigbjørn Skåden, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers + more

This program is not about one thing in particular, nor is it about a set of things; its intention is to pursue the unexpected and unforeseen. Artists from New Mexico, New York, Sápmi, Vancouver and elsewhere will share works utilizing video, sound, installation and performance strategies. Concerns and ideas will emerge in the negative spaces between the works themselves, and resonate with the broader thematic of thirstDays: love, intimacy, and (com)passion in a geopolitical context. The integration of distinct practices in a loosely unified program is intended to produce unexpected outcomes through an open and emergent dialogue within the works and between the people involved. The unanticipated will also manifest itself in a series of performances from additional special guests. There will be karaoke and frybread served.

~ Raymond Boisjoly and Jordan Wilson

Free admission or stream it live
at thirstDays.vivomediaarts.com


SO WIDE SO LOW SO HIGH is part of **thirstDays: love, intimacy and (com)passion, in a geopolitical context**
A monthly series of video, film, performance and ceremony events
Project curator/VIVO artist-in-residence Jayce Salloum

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thirstDays is a project conceived as the rain falls and covers us in a slick substance transduced from the skies, moist. How can this, how can we, contribute to the establishing of a momentum that may have once been here in waves or pieces but over time was squandered, and defeated, with the imposition of capital triumphantly declaring its colonial (un)consciousness in our enclave by the water. Surrounded by a possible serene beauty, grief and sadness, love and hate, what encounters do we inscribe into our psyches and into our beings, what can art do to fulfil a mandate of hope and agency. What can we contribute.

The project takes inspiration from the patterns of existence to look at the mechanisms which we are part of, and relate them to all we end up being, sharing, denying, repressing and preserving. We seek that which compels us: love, intimacy and (com)passion, explorations of the commons/(un)commons; empathy and subjectivities; nourishing sites and situations; modes of agency; and subjectivities of place.
We insist on diversity and threads of collaboration, strands of 'collectivity'/affinity, emphasizing works that have a specificity of location with resonances/meanings for others within reach and beyond. There is a socio-psycho imperative here at this site - Vancouver - grounded in what is missing and manoeuvering the gaps while referencing the historic in the present(ness) - and of the moment - with the critical reimagining of the repressed and the projection of empathy and action. - Jayce Salloum

JAYCE SALLOUM, a grandson of Syrian immigrants from the Bekaa Valley (Lebanon) was born and raised on Sylix (Okanagan) territory in Kelowna, BC. His work has been exhibited in a wide array of venues, from the smallest unnamed storefronts in his dtes (downtown eastside) Vancouver neighbourhood to institutions such as the Musée du Louvre, Museum of Modern Art, Centre Georges Pompidou, National Gallery of Canada, Bienal De La Havana, Sharjah Biennial, Biennale of Sydney and the Rotterdam International Film Festival. Salloum is a recipient of the 2014 Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts.