Blackout's Closing Ceremonies

During the Olympics Vancouver writer Alex Leslie and I have conducted a public art project called BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR, asking members of the public to black out sections of Olympics coverage to create erasure poems. We have collected over 300 hilarious, confrontational, elliptical and/or nonsensical refractive miniatures of the media overwhelm that is and was the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

Thanks to The Candahar’s curators, writer Michael Turner and Reid Shier of Presentation House Gallery and artist Theo Sims, for the use of The Candahar as our project space and for their support of the BLACKOUT project. Thanks to everyone who made a poem; our contributors were all ages and were from Vancouver and away.

Alex and I will be presenting a little talk/video presentation about the project on Sunday at 3:30. Here are the details,

Last Call at the Candahar Bar

February 28, 3:30pm

Playwrights Centre Theatre, 3rd floor

1398 Cartwright Street

Granville Island

Featuring Ensemble Sisyphe's Clock, Elizabeth Bachinsky & Alex Leslie, Clint Burnham, Jeff Derksen, Peter Dickinson, Ken Lum, Anu Sahota, Trevor Boddy & Matthew Soules/ Stan Douglas DJ

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR acknowledges the support of SubTerrain magazine, the City of Vancouver, Presentation House Gallery, and the 2010 Cultural Olympiad . The best of the blackouts will appear inSubTerrain magazine.

The Candahar at the New York Times & MacLean's Magazine

Great news. BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR has received a mention in the most recent edition of MacLean's magazine (on newsstands now) and a write-up about The Candahar has appeared in the New York Times.

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR has become a runaway hit—a truly collaborative public art project—with over 300 hilarious, contrary & sometimes contentious, poems generated in just over a week. Thrillingly, Theo Sims, creator of The Candahar, has invited us to wallpaper the pub with your blackouts for display on last night of the show, Sunday Feb 28. After then, The Candahar comes apart forever. There is still a week left in the project, plenty of time to come down and be a part of BLACKOUT. And, if you've already made a piece, make sure to come out on Sunday and see the project come together in the space.

The details:

Last Call at the Candahar

February 28, 7pm

Playwrights Centre Theatre, 3rd floor

1398 Cartwright Street

Granville Island

Featuring Ensemble Sisyphe's Clock, Elizabeth Bachinsky & Alex Leslie, Clint Burnham, Jeff Derksen, Peter Dickinson, Ken Lum, Anu Sahota, Trevor Boddy & Matthew Soules/ Stan Douglas DJ

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR acknowledges the support of SubTerrain magazine, the City of Vancouver, Presentation House Gallery, and the 2010 Cultural Olympiad . The best of the blackouts will appear in SubTerrain magazine.

What is BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR?

photo by Nikki Reimer

During the sixteen days of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, I'll be working nightly at the Playrights' Centre Theatre on Granville Island with Vancouver writer Alex Leslie on a public art project we're calling BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR.

In response to the censorship that's been a part of the 2010 Olympic PR machine, Leslie and I have collected months worth of Olympic coverage from local and national newspapers as source material for your found poetry.

Poems of erasure (blackout poems) have been a part of collagist literary tradition for over a century. Now it's your turn to give it a try. Your materials at The Candahar include an avalanche of Olympic coverage, black markers, Olympic- coloured electrical tape, scissors, and a very nice pint of lager. The beauty of the blackout? You don't have to write a thing. Just come on down and start blacking out.

Still not sure what I'm talking about? Come on down to The Candahar, catch a show, and find out.

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR acknowledges the support of SubTerrain magazine, the City of Vancouver, the 2010 Cultural Olympiad and Presentation House Gallery. All poems will be shown during the last few nights of the salon and the best of the blackouts will appear in SubTerrain magazine.

March 4th, The Kobzar Literary Award Ceremony

God of Missed Connections has been nominated for the Kobzar Literary Award. I'll be at the ceremonies on March 4 in Toronto. The Ceremony is a fundraiser for the Shevchenko Foundation, a very worthy cause. Here are the details,

Thursday, March 4th

Palais Royale Ballroom

1601 Lakeshore Boulevard W.

Toronto, ON

Cocktails 6pm, Dinner 7:30

Tickets $250 per person

to purchase tickets, please call 416-243-0122

or email christine@shevchenkofoundation.com

And, for those of you who can't be there, here is Ivan and Palagna's wedding scene from from Sergei Parajanov's Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors which played behind me at Supermarket last time I was in TO. It appears in God of Missed Connections. I can't get enough of this scene.

The Real Vancouver Writers Series at the W2 Culture + Media House

February 17th, 7pm – Hosted by Elizabeth Bachinsky

112 West Hastings Street across from the refurbished Woodwards Building in Downtown Vancouver

Teresa McWhirter, Lee Henderson, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Heather Susan Haley, Nikki Reimer, Chris Hutchinson, Dina Del Bucchia, Amber Dawn, Donato Mancini, Sonnet L’Abbe, Jonathon Wilcke, Catherine Owen.

The Real Vancouver Writers Series consists of 4 weekly events showcasing local Vancouver writers, publishers and creative literary artists at the W2 Culture + Media House.

These evenings are designed to show the city and the world real and diverse Vancouver culture and real creative individuals in the literary and publishing communities at a time when the eyes of the world are on our city.

Countless millions of people will want to know what real Vancouver culture looks like.

We are determined to take the opportunity to show the world just how amazing, diverse, talented and fun our literary and publishing culture is!

These events will occur every Wednesday during February beginning at 7pm.

Each night will showcase local writers doing short readings their work and/or interacting with a moderator, taking questions from the audience and will include book sales, signings, a multi-media component, music, cash bar, raffles and give-aways.

Every night will consist of writers that will give the in-house audience a glimpse of the variety of cultures, ethnicities, forms and skills of writers living and working in Vancouver.

It will showcase the writers, their books, their publishers and other support structures within the local community and the larger culture and publishing communities.

In conjunction with Books on the Radio and Geist Magazine.

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR

"Aunt Mamie Talking About Supper" by Able Parris.

During the sixteen days of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, I'll be working nightly with Vancouver writer Alex Leslie on a project we're calling BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR.

BLACKOUT is a site-specific collaborative installation featuring the found visual and process-based works of audience members, artists, and curators of the arts salon at The Candahar. Leslie and I will be on-site, providing the opportunity for our collaborators (that's you) to selectively erase months worth of local and national pre-Olympic news with a bucketful of Sharpies. All poems will be shown during the last few nights of the salon and the best of the blackouts will appear in SubTerrain magazine.

Presentation House Gallery is staging The Candahar at the Playwrights Centre Theatre on Granville Island as "a locus for social interaction and the host site for an ambitious series of nightly events — musical programs, theatrical presentations, and performances. Highlights include an opening intervention and inquiry into the pub itself by Vancouver based artist Rebecca Belmore (Feb 12), presentations by authors Timothy Taylor (Feb 22) and Lee Henderson (Feb 15) musical performances by The Rodney Graham band (Feb 26), Tom Anselmi’s Hello World, (Feb 20), Lisa Marr (Feb 14) and Kevin Schmidt (Feb 27), talks by Nicolaus Schafhausen (Feb 13) and Skeena Reece (Feb 19) a performance by Althea Thauberger (Feb 21) as well as video screenings of Olympic interviews by Nardwuar the Human Serviette (Feb 16 and 23). Evenings are capped by guest DJ’s including Vancouver artists Stan Douglas, Adrian Buitenhaus, Stephen Murray and Tim Lee as well as an Olympic “wrap up” salon with talks by Jeff Derksen, Peter Dickenson, Clint Burnham and Ken Lum among many others. For precise program details and regular updates visit www.presentationhousegall.com beginning February 1. The Candahar is programmed by Vancouver author Michael Turner and invited guests.

BLACKOUT AT THE CANDAHAR acknowledges the support of SubTerrain magazine, the City of Vancouver, and the 2010 Cultural Olympiad.

God of Missed Connections Reviewed in the Toronto Star

Barbara Carey has reviewed God of Missed Connections, alongside John Barton's Hymn, in the Toronto Star.