Over the weekend, drop into MOA to catch a series of films by Love Intersections, a Vancouver-based media arts collective made up of queer artists of colour.

Through these films, engage with queer history, culture, and contemporary social issues with activists and community leaders. Learn more about the social barriers queer community leaders face today, the ways in which they reconcile multiple identities, and their experiences in finding a sense of community in the city’s cultural landscape.

The films will be screened on a rotating basis during museum hours (10 am – 5 pm) at the Presentation Circle in MOA’s Multiversity Galleries.

July 31 + August 1

Free with museum admission

Special thanks to MOA’s public program working committee: Angelic Proof, Issaku Imani and Rea Saxena.

Films

Untold Queer Stories: 6×6 Video Series by Love Intersections (2018)

The Love Intersections six-part episode series will feature untold stories from Vancouver, beginning with the origin of Love Intersections itself, which began as an artistic and creative response to the racism that both Jen Sungshine and David Ng experienced within the queer community — an experience that is fraught with tension and polarization. Love Intersections emerges from this moment, and responds, through their lens and language of love.

Ep1: Origin Story
Love Intersections | Vancouver | 2018 | 6 min | English with subtitles

The introductory film of a six-part episodic series tells the story of how Love Intersections began with Jen Sungshine and David Ng, as they embark on a queer and questioning journey together in search of untold local stories.

Ep2: Queer History
Love Intersections | Vancouver | 2018 | 6 min | English with subtitles

In search of their Queer History, Jen and David look for the missing and hidden stories of queer activism and organizing in Vancouver. Speaking to queer ‘elders’ Ron Sutton and Fatima Jaffer, they uncover the powerful and fascinating contributions that queer/trans people of colour have made on the city’s cultural landscape.

Ep3: Queer Dance
Love Intersections | Vancouver | 2018 | 6 min | English with subtitles

Changes in the city, gentrification, and a rising cost of living are affecting the access to social spaces for many people in Vancouver. Historically underground dance parties and clubs have provided essential refuges and sanctuaries for queer people seeking community. Talking to different queer organizers and dancers in the city, Jen and David explore current challenges and barriers to creating inclusive queer dances amidst an often hostile world.

Ep4: Queer Sports
Love Intersections | Vancouver | 2018 | 6 min | English with subtitles

Why is it important to have a queer gathering space for playing sports? The very non-athletic David and Jen are deer in the headlights when it comes to finding where queer sports take place. Luckily their amazing friend Mohamed introduces them to his queer dodgeball league. In this film they explore the dynamic community of queers who gather over sports, and they find out how to play and create meaningful connections through physical activity.

Ep5: Queer Disability Culture
Love Intersections | Vancouver | 2018 | 6 min | English with subtitles

David and Jen find themselves in a quiet world that is loud in culture as they learn to communicate with queer individuals in the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community. Along the way, they find an Autistic queer of colour who challenges neurotypical ways of understanding culture, communication, and language.

Ep6: Queer Family
Love Intersections | Vancouver | 2018 | 6 min | English with subtitles

How is ‘family’ defined in queer culture? How does the notion of family relate to or exist in cultural traditions and intergenerational relationships? In this film Jen and David meet with two couples at different stages of defining queer family: a gay interracial couple who is ready for children, and a lesbian interracial couple who just brought a baby into this world.

Regalia: Pride in Two Spirits
Love Intersections | Vancouver | 2015 | 5:15 | English with subtitles

Regalia: Pride in Two Spirits tells the story of Duane Stewart-Grant, from the Haisla and Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations in Canada’s West Coast, whose personal journey offers a moving insight into a sacred role belonging to many Indigenous communities pre-colonization. Embodying both the feminine and masculine spirits, a Two Spirit person holds a sacred place within the health and wellbeing of their communities.

Exploring themes of queerness, Indigeneity, family, traditional dance and ceremony, the film carves out a narrative journey told by Duane as he continues to reclaim his Two Spirit role within the systemic legacy of the Canadian Residential School System. The film captures Duane and his adoptive uncle and Nisga’a artist Mike Dangeli in a moment of intergenerational learning through carving, a traditional practice that is deeply rooted in the art of ceremony, oral history, song and dance.

The Politics of Sexy
Love Intersections | Vancouver | 2015 | 5min | English with subtitles

Love Intersections’ co-founder, David Ng and his friend Nomonde explore the intricate complexities of desirability and its links to race and privilege.

Bios

Love Intersections is a media arts collective made up of queer artists of colour using collaborative art making and relational storytelling to address systemic racism in Vancouver. The collective produces intersectional and intergenerational stories from underrepresented communities of colour. They believe in deep and meaningful relationships, intersectionality as an action, and the cultivation of social trust through collective care and community responsibility. They aim to provoke (he)artful social change through a lens of love.

Jen Sungshine (Love Intersections co-artistic directors and co-founder) is a queer Taiwanese-Canadian artist/activist, community facilitator, and cultural producer based in Vancouver. Her most recent works include Yellow Peril: Queer Destiny (2019), winner of the Gerry Brunet Memorial Award for best BC Short; and visual arts exhibit Yellow Peril; Celestial Elements (2020) at the SUM Gallery. She is a co-producer of CURRENT: Feminist Electronic Art Symposium and currently serves on the board of Vancouver Artists Labour Union Cooperative (VALU CO-OP). www.jensungshine.com

David Ng (Love Intersections co-artistic directors and co-founder) is a queer, feminist, media artist. His current artistic practices grapple with queer, racialized, and diasporic identity. His work has also recently included collaborations with Primary Colours / Couleurs primaires, a national initiative to place Indigenous artists as leaders at the centre of the Canadian art system. He is a founding member of the Vancouver Artists Labour Union Cooperative (VALU CO-OP) and a PhD student at the Social Justice Institute at UBC.