Summer is all about the outdoors, and sunscreen or raincoat, it’s a weekend to shine. The Vancouver Mural Festival has taken over with a giant street party, there’s a blues festival at Deer Lake, a celebration of Japanese pop culture (wear your cosplay), an airshow, wrestling at a brewery, a Chinatown Festival… And some indoor events as well, if you’d prefer a roof.
Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Ongoing
Friday August 9
Where: Vancouver Convention Centre
What: Anime Revolution is an annual Anime Convention held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Aiming to spread love and appreciation for Anime and Japanese Culture, we celebrate and partake in cultural exchange over three fun-filled days of activities, exhibits, panels, and performances. These include art, animation, comics, contests, costuming, cultural displays, dance, gaming, musical performances, and much more.
Runs Until: Sunday August 11, 2019
Abbotsford International Airshow 2019
Where: Abbotsford International Airport
What: The Abbotsford International Airshow, is an aviation festival that has grown well beyond its borders over the past 5 decades. In 1970, the Government of Canada designated Abbotsford as “Canada’s National Airshow.” With a role from very early on as a significant stop on the ‘Airshow Circuit,’ Abbotsford has distinguished itself as an event focused on aviation excellence, aerospace advancement and community participation.
Runs Until: Sunday August 11, 2019
Where: The Cinematheque
What: Looking for decency, honesty, integrity? Paragons of virtue? Exemplary tales of moral uplift? Well, chump, you’ve come to the wrong dark, stinking alley! It’ll be seductive spider ladies, cynical anti-heroes, and sordid acts of crime — not to mention sensational cinematic style — tarnishing the silver screen in August as The Cinematheque embarks on its annual summer season of the sleazy, fatalistic nightmare known as Film Noir.
Runs until: Thursday August 22, 2019
KitsFest | Facebook
Where: Kitsilano
What: KitsFest is a sports and healthy living community festival celebrating diversity and inclusiveness for all ages and walks of life at every event. This contagious positive spirit helps the kits community in their aim to build stronger community environments and share their success by giving back to our community through legacies such as our park facility upgrades and special events.
Runs Until: Sunday August 11, 2019
Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival
Where: The Roundhouse
What: The 3rd Annual Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival presented by the Community Arts Council of Vancouver is Canada’s first and only festival dedicated to outsider art. VOAF offers 150 visual and performing artists facing social exclusion and other barriers opportunities for exhibition and sales, performance and participation, connection and learning.
Runs Until: Sunday August 11, 2019
Where: Various Locations
What: Vines Art Festival, Vancouver’s unique multidisciplinary eco-arts festival, features over 70 performing and visual artists at parks throughout Vancouver: Trout Lake Park, Kitsilano Beach, CRAB Park, Granville Island, Roundhouse Community Centre, and Strathcona Park – August 7th-18th, with the main event at Trout Lake Park on August 18th. In its fifth year, this 100% free, all-ages, event joins activism with the arts, not to mention it’s fun, interactive and celebratory!
Runs Until: Sunday August 18, 2019
Vancouver Canadians vs. Everett AquaSox
Vancouver Canadians vs. Everett AquaSox
Where: Nat Bailey Stadium
What: Take me out to the ballgame! Enjoy the footlong hotdogs, the peanuts, the sushi run? It is all there for you when you watch the local minor league Vancouver Canadians at Nat Bailey Stadium.
Where: Jonathan Rogers Park
What: Enjoy a free, evening movie in the park under the stars, featuring Academy-nominated film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, by notorious British street artist, Banksy. All-ages, licensed event.
Summer Activities at Trimble Park with WPGCC
Trimble Park Playground Family Events
Where: Trimble Park Playground
What: Kids and grownups of all ages can enjoy games, crafts, splashing around in the supervised wading pool, a rock climbing/ bouldering wall, swings, slides, play structures and more at the Trimble Park Playground events with West Point Grey Community Centre. Join us 6 days per week for activities including a BBQ, run until 8pm on Family Fun Nights on Wednesdays, and 3:30pm the rest of the week. Event does not run on Sundays.
Runs Until: Saturday August 24, 2019
Honeyland
Where: VanCity Theatre
What: Nestled in an isolated mountain region deep within the Balkans, Hatidze Muratova lives with her ailing mother in a village without roads, electricity or running water. She’s the last in a long line of Macedonian wild beekeepers, eking out a living farming honey in small batches to be sold in the closest city – a mere four hours’ walk away. Hatidze’s peaceful existence is thrown into upheaval by the arrival of an itinerant family, with their roaring engines, seven rambunctious children and herd of cattle.
Runs until:Saturday August 25, 2019
David Crosby: Remember My Name
David Crosby: Remember My Name
Where: VanCity Theatre
What: Interviewed by Almost Famous filmmaker (and former Rolling Stone journo) Cameron Crowe, 60s survivor David Crosby reflects on a long, heady, and often turbulent career in this candid, soul-searching doc. A long time resident of Laurel Canyon, Crosby is one of those artists who defined the hippie era – in good ways, and bad.
Runs until: Sunday August 18, 2019
Where: Slice of Life Galleries
What: Sophie Buddle hosts some of the best comics the west coast has to offer, such as Graham Clark, Erica Sigurdson, Aaron Read, Dino Archie and more.
Saturday August 10
Puppet Parade at Vancouver Mural Festival
Where: Main Street
What: MOA joins forces with the Vancouver Mural Festival to present a Puppet Parade featuring the Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret. Come find MOA on Main Street at this year’s Vancouver Mural Festival and enjoy a spirit-lifting puppet and clown performance by the Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret. Best known for the annual Parade of Lost Souls, the Dusty Flowerpot Cabaret is an artist collective of professional and emerging artists based in East Vancouver.
Photo: Jennifer Gauthier
Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival
Where: Deer Lake Park
What: For the last 19 years, the annual Burnaby Blues + Roots Festival has been a highlight of the outdoor concert season. On Saturday, August 10, 2019 the event returns to picturesque Deer Lake Park with another lineup of world-class musicians. Mixing folk and Americana to rock & roll and vintage rhythm & blues, including Feist, Lord Huron, Dan Mangan, The War and Treaty, William Prince and Southern Avenue. Fans of the family-friendly event will once again enjoy a full day of music, local food vendors and activities for supporters of all ages
Where: Between 7th & 8th at Manitoba St
What: An elevated dance floor right alongside the Mural Festival.
Where: Chinatown
What: Over 50,000 participants will converge on the streets of Columbia and Keefer in historic Chinatown to experience one of Vancouver’s largest multicultural summer celebrations. Festival activities includes a Day Market, “Historical & Food Tasting Walking Tour”, Kids Corner, Multicultural Stage Performances, Cultural Corner, Martial Arts Theme related activities, and an evening Streetfest block party!
Where: Parallel 49, 1934 Triumph Street
What: A full day and night of high flying wrestling action. Featuring Funnybone, Ashley Sixx, Ravenous Randy, Cat Power and more.
Where: T’s Once Upon A Tea Leaf
What: Back by popular demand for year 3! Join us on August 10th as we transform one of Maple Ridge’s back alleys into a social scene like you’ve never seen! Cocktails, Food Truck Dinner, DJ, Prizes, Games and more. The pop up Tea-ki Bar Social will benefit Music Heals; investment in music therapy for the Ridge Meadows Association for Community Living for individuals with developmental disabilities and their families, offering a wide array of services to meet the needs of people from infancy to adulthood.
Vancouver Canadians
Vancouver Canadians vs. Everett AquaSox
Where: Nat Bailey Stadium
What: Take me out to the ballgame! Enjoy the footlong hotdogs, the peanuts, the sushi run? It is all there for you when you watch the local minor league Vancouver Canadians at Nat Bailey Stadium. Be one of the first 1,000 fans through the gates to watch the Canadians host the Everett Aquasox and come away with a cool pair of sunglasses presented by Carter Honda located at 8th and Burrard. Stick around after the game as we light up the sky above Nat Bailey Stadium with another one of our legendary fireworks extravaganzas!
East Side Flea
Where: 238 East 1st Ave
What: Vintage, hand-made and other quirky items, drinks, food and adult beverages!
Community Paddling Day
Where: Creekside Community Centre
What: Join Dragon Zone Paddling Club for our final Community Paddling Day of the 2019 summer season! Come out and learn to dragon boat for free in a 45 minute dragon boat session beginning at 12:00 PM, 1:00 PM or 2:00 PM.
Where: Granville Street
What: India Live is taking place on Saturday, August 10th on Granville Street in downtown Vancouver. This event is free for the public and utilizes music, song, dance and visual arts to highlight Vancouver’s intercultural community. There is also a vibrant vendor marketplace that features cultural wares, clothing, gifts and delicious snacks. Family fun for everyone!
Vancouver Mural Festival: The Park Show
Where: Jonathan Rogers Park
What: Following the inaugural success of The Park Show in 2018, the event returns to Jonathan Rogers Park on Saturday, August 10. Produced by Live Nation and Blueprint Live as a finale to the Vancouver Mural Festival, the all-ages community concert will feature performances by New York singer-songwriter LP, electronic instrumentalists badbadnotgood, Canadian Indigenous artist iskwē and local Vancouver legend My!Gay!Husband DJ’ing throughout the show.
Pagan Pride Day
Where: John Hendry Park
What: Vendors, healers, and more will be gathered. Including workshops on grimoires, Norse, Islamic spirituality, rituals, and smudging.
Sunday August 11
Where: VanDusen Botanical Garden
What: Pack a blanket and bring your friends to enjoy a late-afternoon concert in the garden with a refreshing twist. Romantic favourites by Mendelssohn and Ravel are featured alongside engaging works by popular contemporary composers. Purchase from a selection of beverages and snacks during the pre-concert happy hour, with music provided by a live DJ. Then settle in for a String Quintet by Mendelssohn as well as the lush, romantic sounds of Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro, for Flute, Clarinet, String Quartet and Harp.
Tours in Farsi: A Handful of Dust | The Polygon
Tour of the Polygon Gallery in Farsi
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: Join us at The Polygon Gallery for a guided tour in Farsi, led by an arts professional. Learn more about the history of the Gallery and the summer exhibitions: Christian Marclay: The Clock, Sara Cwynar: Gilded Age II, Samuel Roy-Bois: Reward Friends, Punish Enemies, and Dog Days
Where: Orpheum Theatre
What: Possessing a smoky and striking alto singing voice, Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter Lauren Daigle went to number one on the Billboard Christian chart with her first album, 2015’s How Can It Be. Having already drawn some comparisons to Adele, her more soulful follow-up, Look Up Child, was an even bigger hit, reaching number three on the Billboard 200.
Ensemble Theatre Company presents Fundraiser: The Importance of Being Oscar
Where: The Aberthau Mansion
What: A special ETC fundraising event, The Importance of Being Oscar is a one-person, multi-character omnibus of all things Wilde – performed by ETC Artistic Director, Tariq Leslie – that intersperses dramatized excerpts from Wilde’s writing with biographical highlights of his life.
Where: Havana Theatre
What: Shakespeare After Dark is the highbrow fusion of Shakespeare served with a side of improvisational mischief. Side-splitting, raucous, and completely interactive, Shakespeare After Dark will blow you away. So dust off your doublets, ruffle your ruffs and prepare to enjoy a side-splitting work never before seen this side of the globe.
Red Racer Summer Cask Festival | Eventbrite
Where: Red Racer Taphouse
What: Back by popular demand Summer Cask Festival featuring all Fruit and Sour Casks! Come and talk casks with some serious beer connoisseurs of Vancouver. 25 different casks from all the local Craft beers around the Lower Mainland.
Ongoing
EMV’s Vancouver Bach Festival 2019
Where: Christ Church Cathedral & Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
What: This year’s festival celebrates Early Music Vancouver’s (EMV) 50th anniversary with performances by many of the top West Coast artists, and gifted artists from across Europe and North America. The 14-concert festival commences with EMV’s ensemble in residence, Les Boréades, in a spectacular two-night performance of J.S. Bach’s Complete Brandenburg Concertos.
Runs Until: Friday August 9, 2019
¡Festival Judío! A Celebration of Latin American Jewish Culture
Where: Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture
What: ¡Festival Judío! Celebrates the Culture of Latin America fused with Jewish cultural accents to present 5 film nights, art show and book sale, 5 afternoon talks by Latin American guest speakers, a children’s story workshop and TWO live music nights with dance lesson to warm up and international Latin musicians. Opening night Milonga or tango party and closing night Klezmer fusing Samba, Freve, Afoxe, Maracatu and Baiao rhythm styles. Latin cuisine and refreshments available throughout.
Runs Until: Friday August 9, 2019
Where: Main Street & Broadway
What: Vancouver Mural Festival is Western Canada’s largest free celebration of public art. Now, in its 4th year, Vancouver Mural Festival features an expanded 10-day program of events, from galleries, parties, and public talks to artists painting new murals and daily guided tours. The festival culminates in the Vancouver Mural Festival’s main event, the highly-anticipated Mount Pleasant Street Party on Saturday, August 10 from 12-7pm.
Runs Until: Saturday August 10, 2019
Carousel Theatre for Young People’s Teen Shakespeare Program presents The Winter’s Tale
Where: Performance Works Outdoor Stage
What: For 29 summers, Carousel Theatre for Young People’s Teen Shakespeare Program has been providing pre-professional theatre training to teens 13-18 in an intensive six-week program. Over the years, many participants have gone on to grace some of Canada’s top stages including the Stratford Festival, Canstage, The Belfry Theatre, Bard on the Beach, and the Arts Club Theatre Company. This summer the talented teens of CTYP’s Teen Shakespeare Program take on Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale – a story of love, jealousy, and atonement, where things aren’t quite as they seem… A fantastical tale, full of tricks and turns, that is sure to delight the entire family.
Runs Until: Saturday August 10, 2019
The Understudy | The Georgia Straight
Where: Pal Studio Theatre
What: What do you do when your past catches up to you and demands retribution? Island Productions presents The Understudy, directed by Mel Tuck and starring Sarah Boes, Michael Germant and Drew Henderson. Playwright Theresa Rebeck’s complex love triangle opens August 1st at PAL Studio Theatre in Coal Harbour.
Runs Until: Saturday August 10, 2019
Where: Ambleside
What: For 29 years, the Harmony Arts Festival, presented by Odlum Brown Limited, has been one of the North Shore’s most popular cultural events. The free festival draws crowds from all over the Lower Mainland to celebrate a harmonious balance of visual, culinary and performing arts on the spectacular West Vancouver waterfront. The ten-day festival attracts over 140,000 attendees.
Runs Until: Sunday August 11, 2019
Lisabel
Where: LeSoleil Fine Art Gallery
What: A prolific painter from Montreal, Lisabel registered her trademark in the pictorial trend across the globe because of her exceptional technique that combines art and technology. It is in an abstract and semi-figurative style, using unique composite materials that we recognize her works by their luminosity and rich colors, but also thanks to the dynamism and movement that emerged.Don’t miss her original collection, available now at LeSoleil Fine Art Gallery.
Runs Until: Monday August 12, 2019
Ensemble Theatre Company presents The Drawer Boy
Where: Jericho Arts Centre
What: Ontario – 1972. Miles, a young theatre actor arrives in Huron County at the home of Angus and Morgan, two aging bachelor farmers. Miles stays with them in order to gather stories about rural life and make a play about it. A compelling portrait of friendship, Michael Healey’s play is also a striking examination of the transformational power of storytelling. Already a Canadian classic, The Drawer Boy invites us to explore the blurred line between reality and fiction, and re-frames our assumptions about the art that represents their synthesis.
Runs Until: Wednesday August 14, 2019
Ensemble Theatre Company
Ensemble Theatre Company presents Superior Donuts
Where: Jericho Arts Centre
What: Arthur Przybyszewski owns a decrepit donut shop in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago. Franco Wicks, a black teenager who is his only employee, wants to change the shop for the better. This comedy-drama by Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Letts explores the challenges of embracing the past and the redemptive power of friendship in this soulful play filled with humour and humanity.
Runs Until: Friday August 16, 2019
Kitsilano Showboat
Where: Kitsilano Beach Park
What: The Kitsilano Showboat operates as a community stage for amateur entertainment over the summer months at Kitsilano beach. It provides a venue for entertainers of all ages and all backgrounds from across the lower mainland. The entertainment is typically multiculturally based, representing the many roots of our society who may not otherwise have the opportunity to perform in front of a live audience.
Runs Until: Saturday August 17, 2019
Where: Various Locations
What: Vines Art Festival, Vancouver’s unique multidisciplinary eco-arts festival, features over 70 performing and visual artists at parks throughout Vancouver: Trout Lake Park, Kitsilano Beach, CRAB Park, Granville Island, Roundhouse Community Centre, and Strathcona Park – August 7th-18th, with the main event at Trout Lake Park on August 18th. In its fifth year, this 100% free, all-ages, event joins activism with the arts, not to mention it’s fun, interactive and celebratory!
Runs Until: Sunday August 18, 2019
David Crosby: Remember My Name
David Crosby: Remember My Name
Where: VanCity Theatre
What: Interviewed by Almost Famous filmmaker (and former Rolling Stone journo) Cameron Crowe, 60s survivor David Crosby reflects on a long, heady, and often turbulent career in this candid, soul-searching doc. A long time resident of Laurel Canyon, Crosby is one of those artists who defined the hippie era – in good ways, and bad.
Runs until: Sunday August 18, 2019
Born Yesterday
Ensemble Theatre Company presents Born Yesterday
Where: Jericho Arts Centre
What: Garson Kanin’s classic of 1950s Broadway is both a comic masterpiece and a startlingly prescient glimpse of the corruption that can spread in a democracy once moneyed interests begin to take root. By turns uproarious and sobering, and packed with a cast of vibrant characters throughout, Kanin’s play reminds us that a healthy democracy depends on its inhabitants to stay healthy, and that abuse of power cannot be stemmed without an informed and engaged citizenry.
Runs Until: Thursday August 19, 2019
Where: The Cinematheque
What: Looking for decency, honesty, integrity? Paragons of virtue? Exemplary tales of moral uplift? Well, chump, you’ve come to the wrong dark, stinking alley! It’ll be seductive spider ladies, cynical anti-heroes, and sordid acts of crime — not to mention sensational cinematic style — tarnishing the silver screen in August as The Cinematheque embarks on its annual summer season of the sleazy, fatalistic nightmare known as Film Noir.
Runs until: Thursday August 22, 2019
Robson Square Summer Dance Series
Robson Square Summer Dance Series
Where: UBC Robson Square
What: Free lessons, performances, and social dancing from 7:30 pm to late, every Friday under the domes at Robson Square. Free lesson starts at 7:30pm, followed by social dancing and demonstrations. Everyone is welcome to this outdoor dance event, no partner, no experience required.
Runs Until: Friday August 23, 2019
Summer Activities at Trimble Park with WPGCC
Trimble Park Playground Family Events
Where: Trimble Park Playground
What: Kids and grownups of all ages can enjoy games, crafts, splashing around in the supervised wading pool, a rock climbing/ bouldering wall, swings, slides, play structures and more at the Trimble Park Playground events with West Point Grey Community Centre. Join us 6 days per week for activities including a BBQ, run until 8pm on Family Fun Nights on Wednesdays, and 3:30pm the rest of the week. Event does not run on Sundays.
Runs Until: Saturday August 24, 2019
Theatre Under the Stars
Theatre Under the Stars presents Mamma Mia! And Disney’s Newsies
Where: Malkin Bowl
What: A beloved Vancouver tradition since 1940, TUTS’ 2019 season offers two stunning musicals: one that tells the lighthearted tale of a mother and a daughter who embark on a hilarious quest to discover the identity of her true father; the other shares the stirring account of a ragged band of newspaper boys and street urchins who strike for fair pay and humane working conditions in 1899 New York City.
Runs Until: Saturday August 25, 2019
Honeyland
Where: VIFF Theatre
What: Nestled in an isolated mountain region deep within the Balkans, Hatidze Muratova lives with her ailing mother in a village without roads, electricity or running water. She’s the last in a long line of Macedonian wild beekeepers, eking out a living farming honey in small batches to be sold in the closest city – a mere four hours’ walk away. Hatidze’s peaceful existence is thrown into upheaval by the arrival of an itinerant family, with their roaring engines, seven rambunctious children and herd of cattle.
Runs until:Saturday August 25, 2019
Sunday Afternoon Salsa
Where: UBC Robson Square
What: Sunday Afternoon Salsa at Robson Square is an annual series of FREE outdoor salsa dances held at Robson Square in downtown Vancouver during the summer months of July and August. Try the free lesson at 3pm, watch the performances at 5pm, or just check out the social dancing throughout the afternoon and see how much fun it is!
Runs Until: Sunday August 25, 2019
Music at the Cannery | Gulf of Georgia Cannery
Where: Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site, Richmond
What: Steveston’s summertime music series returns to the Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site on Friday evenings in July and August. Concerts will take place on the Cannery’s outdoor tank deck or inside the historic building in inclement weather. The show will go on, rain or shine!
Runs Until: Friday August 30, 2019
River Rock Casino’s Summer Lights Patio Party
Where: River Rock Casino Resort
What: Bring your crew Friday and Saturday nights to The Rock. Free admission, featuring live DJs and food & drink specials.
Runs until: Saturday August 31, 2019
Dog Days
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: Dog Days is a survey of the camera’s interactions with our canine companions. Today, dogs figure prominently in visual culture through Instagram feeds, viral videos, memes and other media, yet our photographic obsession with dogs is as old as the camera itself. Dog Days features contemporary works, classic images, and vintage photographs from several local archives and collections, considering how dogs have shaped, and are shaped by, human society.
Runs Until: Sunday September 1, 2019
Butterflies at the Aquarium
Butterflies at the Vancouver Aquarium
Where: The Vancouver Aquarium
What: Step out of British Columbia’s temperate rainforest and into the Amazon’s tropical rainforest when you enter the Graham Amazon Gallery. Discover a wide variety of butterflies, including blue morphos, giant owls and heliconians, as you stroll along the boardwalk. Keen eyes will spy them feeding on nectar, fruit and flowers, camouflaging on tree trunks, courting a mate and hitchhiking on lucky visitors.
Runs until: September 2019
Moving Still: Performative Photography from India
Moving Still: Performative Photography from India
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery & Annex Theatre
What: A major exhibition of works by thirteen artists based in India whose photographic practices focus on constructing and reconstructing realities. The exhibition and will showcase more than one hundred works, dating from the 1800s to the present, and examines themes of gender, religion and sexual identity using photography, an important medium in India since the mid-nineteenth century.
Runs until: Sunday September 2, 2019
Making Waves: The Story and Legacy of Greenpeace
Where: Vancouver Maritime Museum
What: With humble beginnings in Vancouver, Greenpeace has grown into a large organization with offices in 40 countries. The NGO has protested numerous causes: whaling, deforestation, mining, genetic testing, and nuclear testing. Explore this exhibit that goes from their first voyage from Vancouver to Amchitka to protest Nuclear testing on an old fishing vessel to how cities, government, and industry today are developing new policies, technologies, and sustainable practices to ensure the preservation of our environment.
Runs until: Monday September 9, 2019
The Clock by Christian Marclay
The Clock by Christian Marclay
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: Recognized as one of the most important contemporary artworks of our time, The Clock is an audiovisual tour-de-force. Presented in a custom-built cinema within the gallery, the work montages film and television footage from the last 70 years. The time represented in each clip is synchronized with actual time, allowing The Clock to function as a 24-hour timepiece. On select Fridays, the gallery will stay open overnight for 24-hour screenings. During these overnight screenings, visitors will be able to see the evening and early morning sections of the film.
Runs Until: Sunday September 15, 2019
Bill Reid Gallery | Language Matters
Where: Bill Reid Gallery
What: Water is an essential ingredient for human life—it connects us geographically, culturally, and socially while fueling our bodies and spirits. Guest curators ReMatriate Collective reveal the unique connection between womxn and water in the matriarchal societies of the Northwest Coast, with special attention to the roles of child-bearers, healers, and doulas.
Runs Until: Monday September 16, 2019
Rolande Souliere: Frequent Stopping IV and V
Rolande Souliere: Frequent Stopping IV and V
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: The multi-media practice of Australia-based Anishinaabe artist Rolande Souliere entangles the visual language of hard-edged geometric abstraction with that of contemporary traffic signage to consider how colonial infrastructures mark both spaces and the people inhabiting them. Her solo exhibition Frequent Stopping IV and V presents new large-scale, site-specific work at the Contemporary Art Gallery’s two public sites: its street level façade and the nearby Yaletown-Roundhouse Station. This exhibition draws from Souliere’s ongoing body of work that creates interventions using caution tape and street barrier patterns in immersive, muscular installations.
Runs until: Friday September 20, 2019
Bard on the Beach
Where: Bard on the Beach Festival Site, Vanier Park
What: Bard on the Beach, Western Canada’s largest not-for-profit, professional Shakespeare Festival, welcomes you to join them for their 30th season. Presented in a magnificent setting on the waterfront of Vanier Park, this year’s lineup includes: The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare In Love, All’s Well That Ends Well, and Coriolanus.
Runs until: Saturday September 21, 2019
CAG presents Maryam Jafri | Automatic Negative Thought
CAG presents Maryam Jafri | Automatic Negative Thought
Where: Contemporary Art Gallery
What: Extending across both of CAG’s two gallery spaces, the exhibition will include the presentation of three recent series of sculptural works alongside a new video work co-commissioned by CAG and Taxispalais Kunsthalle Tirol in Innsbruck, Austria. The artist explores the ways the body is increasingly experienced as a site of anxiety-fueled narcissism and self-surveillance that is politically and economically produced.
Runs Until: Sunday September 22, 2019
The Polygon | Sara Cwynar: Gilded Age II
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: Organized by Vancouver curator Jenn Jackson, Gilded Age II is Cwynar’s first solo exhibition on the West Coast. The exhibition features recent photographs and two videos, reflecting Cwynar’s interest in the enduring legacies of design and popular imagery in contemporary consciousness. Across Cwynar’s works, found photographs, everyday artefacts, illustrations, notes, and models unfold and challenge enduring systems of value and meaning.
Runs Until: Sunday September 22, 2019
Shipyards Night Market
Where: The Shipyards, North Vancouver
What: Fresh food, locally made products, musicians, art and entertainment. The festivities in the Square kick off at 5pm on Friday nights where you will find 100+ vendors selling fresh food and locally made products. The Friday Night Market also includes a beer garden serving local craft beer and cider as well as Betty’s Vodka Iced Tea. You must me 19+ to enter the beer garden. On the Shipbuilders’ Stage there is live music until 10pm, showcasing talent from all over BC.
Runs until: Friday September 27, 2019
Alberto Giacometti: A Line Through Time
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: With more than 130 artworks on view, this exhibition will present the work of Alberto Giacometti, one of the twentieth century’s most renowned and influential artists. Including masterful works in sculpture, painting, drawing and design, it will examine the breadth of Giacometti’s practice while highlighting his place among his contemporaries in Paris and London
Runs until: Sunday September 29, 2019
Wild Things: The Power of Nature in Our Lives
Where: Museum of Vancouver
What: This exhibition delves into the life stories of local animals and plants—how they relate to each other and how they connect people to nature in the city. Scenic design, videos, taxidermy, crowd-sourcing technologies, and the display of natural specimens breathe life into these tales of co-habitation. The immersive nature of the exhibition, including hands-on activities, encourages visitors to examine their relationship with nature, think about momentarily disconnecting from their devices, and find equilibrium with the natural world around them.
Runs until: Monday September 30, 2019
Where: Bill Reid Gallery
What: Explore the unique connection between womxn and water in the matriarchal societies of the Northwest Coast, with special attention to the roles of child-bearers, healers, and doulas. Artists Richelle Bear Hat (Blackfoot/Cree), Krystle Coughlin (Selkirk), Lindsay Katsitsakataste Delaronde (Mohawk), Alison Marks (Tlingit), Dionne Paul (Nuxalk/Sechelt), Kali Spitzer (Kaska Dena), Marika Echachis Swan (Nuu-chah-nulth), Carrielynn Victor (Sto:lo), Veronica Rose Waechter (Gitxsan) and Water Keeper, Audrey Siegl (Musqueam) will explore water as a crucial element of creation, its historical uses for survival, and contemporary over-consumption as a threat to sensitive coastal ecosystems.
Runs until: Wednesday October 2, 2019
Shake Up: Preserving What We Value
Shake Up: Preserving What We Value
Where: Museum of Anthropology
What: The exhibition will bring to light the convergence of earthquake science and technology with the rich Indigenous knowledge and oral history of the living cultures represented in MOA’s Northwest Coast collection. Beyond scientific discoveries, knowledge of earthquakes and natural disasters has been passed down through generations throughout many cultures, including those of the Northwest Coast First Nations. Also as part of the exhibition, visitors will have the opportunity to see the majestic poles of the Great Hall undergo conservation, many for the first time in 40 years.
Runs until: Fall 2019
Richmond Night Market
Where: Richmond, BC
What: Stop by for authentically Asian snacks, street food and retailers selling unique accessories and knick-knacks at street-side prices. Some merchants are willing to bargain, so channel your inner negotiator and you’ll leave with a haul. There’s a diverse array of nightly live entertainment ranging from music and dance performances to carnival games and rides.
Runs until: Friday October 4, 2019
Shadows, Strings and Other Things: The Enchanting Theatre of Puppets
Where: Museum of Anthropology
What: This enchanting exhibition illustrates the role puppets have played around the world in the transmission of cultural knowledge, stories, and values from generation to generation. Shadows, Strings and Other Things features a broad array of puppets, old and new, from 15 countries in Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Visitors will have the opportunity to view more than 250 handcrafted puppets from MOA’s collection — the largest in Western Canada — plus, new acquisitions from China, Brazil, Italy, Java, the UK, and France revealed to the public for the first time. Enter into an immersive and theatrical world for visitors of all ages.
Runs until: Monday October 14, 2019
Vikky Alexander: Extreme Beauty
Vikky Alexander: Extreme Beauty
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The Vancouver Art Gallery presents Vikky Alexander: Extreme Beauty, the first retrospective of the renowned Canadian artist. Alexander became known for her investigations of the appropriated image, the artificiality of nature and the seduction of space in the 1980s. Extreme Beauty showcases more than eighty works from this artist’s career whose practice includes photography, sculpture, collage and installation.
Runs Until: Sunday October 20, 2019
Where: Lonsdale Quay
What: Stroll the boardwalk and take in ocean and city skyline views from North Vancouver’s Lonsdale Quay while you check out fresh, locally grown produce, delicious baked goods and nifty crafts created by local growers, bakers, and crafters.
Runs Until: Saturday October 26, 2019 (Saturdays)
The Dark Secrets of Stanley Park
Where: Stanley Park
What: There’s more to Stanley Park than incredible scenery. It’s also recently been home to crime, riots, persecution, political intrigue, class warfare, logging, hunting, disease, military installations, remarkable public art, ecological catastrophes, secret construction mega-projects, poetry, scandal, and murder.
Runs until: Saturday November 30, 2019 (Saturdays)
Image sourced from Jazz Vespers | Facebook.com
Where: First Baptist Church
What: St. Andrew’s Wesley’s Jazz Vespers, is celebrating its 26th Anniversary. Every Sunday from 4-5 PM, you’ll be tapping your toes and clapping your hands to the amazing sounds of local and international jazz giants. It’s an hour of jazz interspersed with reflections on love, faith and hope given by Rev. Dan Chambers or Very Rev. Dr. Gary Paterson.
Runs Until: Sunday December 29, 2019
Samuel Roy-Bois
Samuel Roy-Bois: Reward Friends, Punish Enemies
Where: The Polygon Gallery
What: Reward Friends, Punish Enemies is a site-responsive installation – imagined as an intervention into the architectural space of The Polygon—that invokes histories of resource extraction and the forest industry on the North Shore. Roy-Bois’ rustic, handcrafted aesthetic rubs against the steel-and-glass design of the gallery and the surrounding waterfront developments, upending distinctions between interior and exterior, private and public.
Runs Until: December 30, 2019
How Far Do You Travel
Where: Select B-Line TransLink busses
What: Five Canadian artists — Diyan Achjadi, Patrick Cruz, Rolande Souliere, Erdem Tasdelen and Anna Torma — are being commissioned to graphically wrap the exterior of a series of articulated buses traveling on major routes in Metro Vancouver.
Runs until: Tuesday December 31, 2019
Emily Carr | Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery
Where: Vancouver Art Gallery
What: The Vancouver Art Gallery is home to the finest collection of art by Emily Carr (1871–1945) in the world. Our collection is particularly rich in her forest paintings from the 1930s. This installation in the Gallery’s rotunda reflects Carr’s direct engagement with and great affection for British Columbia’s landscape—for her, a site of artistic and spiritual inquiry. This installation brings together four of Carr’s iconic paintings: Big Raven (1931); Red Cedar (1931); Scorned as Timber, Beloved of the Sky (1935); and Above the Gravel Pit (1937).
Runs Until: Tuesday December 31, 2019
Where: Vancouver International Film Centre
What: Year-round VIFF presents some of the world’s best cinema fused with related talks and events in a unique Films+ model.
Runs Until: Tuesday December 31, 2019
Teatro Intimo Del Flamenco
Where: The Improv Centre, Granville Island
What: Karen Flamenco brings the glamour and extravagance of a large flamenco dance production onto a small theatrical stage. The one-hour production welcomes audiences of all ages with live traditional flamenco music, dance, storylines, puppetry and magic. With theatre style seating and bistro-style table seats, every audience member will get a close-up and personal experience that is very typical of a traditional Spanish Tablao.
Runs until: Saturday May 1, 2020
What are you up to this weekend? Tell me and the rest of Vancouver in the comments.
