Vancouver: Chosen Family Portraits

July 16, 2011June 16, 2011

In 2011, the 23rd Vancouver Queer Film Festival (August 11- 21, 2011) will step out of its role of being strictly an indoor, ticketed arts presenter and present public art for the first time. They say “Public art will allow us to reach the wider, general public”.

They will present Celebrate Queer Vancouver, an interactive program hosted throughout the city from July 21 – August 21, 2011. ‘Celebrate Queer Vancouver’ is a partnership with Vancouver 125 and includes film presentations, community dialogues and public art installations across the city.

Queer Public Art Installations
The public art installations in Vancouver this summer are a series of lamp-post installations that include a ‘Chosen Family Portrait’ image, personal quote culled from the featured family’s testimonial, and an historical or present day fact that responds to the image, quote and location.

‘Chosen Family Portraits’ is a community-based art project commissioned during last years Vancouver Queer Film Festival with Artists-in-Residence Sarah Race and Sarah Buchanan. This project invited the Festival audience and dynamic communities to model with their chosen families and share. 118 people posed for this project, yielding 32 family portraits and accompanying audio oral histories.

You can view Chosen Family Portrait images at various sites throughout ‘Celebrate Queer Vancouver’ (July 21 – August 21), including an installation as a part of the Queer Arts Festival (July 26 – August 13, 2011), presented by Pride in Art.

Sarah Buchanan Sarah Race