Amid a summer landscape of blockbuster movies and big-budget musicals, Spatial Poetics VII offers one of the most artistically innovative happenings on the calendar. Partnering emerging and established Asian Canadian artists from different disciplines, it takes place starting Saturday (July 12) around Gastown. The results this year include So long we miss you forever, a poster project by Diyan Achjadi and Vanessa Kwan that pays homage to the old signs disappearing due to development in the Downtown Eastside and Chinatown. Elsewhere, Natalie Purschwitz and Kimberley Cooper explore the city’s construction boom in Street Surgery, and Madoka Hara and musician Lee Hutzulak have created the installation Shizuku, an ode to those endless Vancouver drizzles. For its opening night, Spatial Poetics is presented as a walking tour, starting with performances at 7:30 p.m. at Hunt & Gather and at 8 p.m. at Nouvelle Nouvelle. Poetics is an advance event for the 32nd annual Powell Street Festival. More info on both is at www.powellstreetfestival.com/.