The publication for the year long thirstDays project is now available at VIVO. End Notes is 160 pages of text by Elisa Ferrari, Tarah Hogue and Jayce Salloum, plenty of photographs, most by Brendan Yandt & Alisha Weng, packaged with the 12 program notes designed in a beautiful folder by The Future.
thirstDays was a monthly event that took place February 2016 to March 2017 primarily at VIVO, with programs also at the Native Education College and Oppenheimer Park, Vancouver. The project, conceived and curated by artist-in-residence Jayce Salloum and coordinated by Elisa Ferrari, consisted of monthly interdisciplinary events comprised of short works in performance, film, video, ceremony or some mix thereof taking into consideration the all-embracing theme of love, intimacy and (com)passion, within a geopolitical context.
thirstDays individual program curators were Cease Wyss + Aaron Rice, Jeneen Frei Njootli + Ashok Mathur, Denise Ryner + Tonel, Irwin Oostindie + Ronnie Dean Harris, David Khang + Phanuel Antwi, Urban Subjects (Sabine Bitter, Jeff Derksen, Helmut Webber), Ali Lohan + Cecily Nicholson, Raymond Boisjoly + Jordan Wilson, Tannis Nielsen + Jenny Fraser, Dima Alansari + Cathy Busby, Henry Tsang + Diyan Achjadi, Elisa Ferrari + Stacey Ho. Over 125 artists participated in thirstDays, including Alize Zorlutuna, Amy Malbeuf, Anahita Jamali Rad, Audrey Siegl, Ayumi Goto, Cathy Busby, Cecily Nicholson, Chandra Melting Tallow, Charlene Vickers, Diyan Achjadi, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Fred Wah, Guadalupe Martinez, Helen Lee, Henry Hills, Hildegard Westerkamp, Ho Tam, Jenny Fraser, Jude Anogwih, Jules Koostachin, Kamala Todd, Krista Belle Stewart, Lee Maracle, Lindsay Katsitsakatste Delaronde, Lisa Arrastia, Lori Blondeau, Manuel Piña, Michael Rakowitz, Mique’l Dangeli, Phinder Dulai, Raven Chacon, Ricardo Basbaum, Rita Wong, Ronnie Dean Harris, Sandra Semchuk, Sarah Shamash, Skeena Reece, Sonnet L’Abbé, Stacey Ho, Vanessa Richards and Zack Khalil.
Response texts & links to video and photos at: thirstdays.vivomediaarts.com
Other documentation: facebook.com/thirstDaysVIVO
The thirstDays publication is available for $20 from VIVO Media Arts Centre.
Elisa Ferrari is an artist and curator, and holds a BFA (University of Architecture of Venice) and a MAA (ECUAD). She works with text, image, and sound. To consider acts and implications of retrieval, she produces projects that manifest as installations, sound walks, artist books, and performance; often addressing or incorporating archival fragments. She is part of – – / dashes, a sound performance collaboration with John Brennan. She is currently collaborating with Stacey Ho on a book of graphic scores for deep listening and sound making.
Jayce Salloum is a Vancouver-based photographer and video artist known for installation works that sensitively investigate historical, social and cultural contexts of place. The grandson of Lebanese immigrants, Salloum studied in the United States and began his artistic career in 1975. The central themes played out in his work include questions of exile, ethnic representation and notions of identity. In 2014, Salloum won a Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts. https://twitter.com/JayceSalloum
Tarah Hogue is a curator, writer and cultural worker based in Saskatoon, Canada, located in Treaty 6 territory and the homeland of the Métis. Her work is invested in the capacity of art and artists to envision and enact otherwise ways of being in the world, while seeking to unsettle settler colonial frameworks by prioritizing Indigenous knowledges in dialogue with other cultural communities.