VOAF 2017

Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival banner

The 2017 Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival was a tremendous success!

From Community Arts Council Executive Director Eric Rhys-Miller:

“The feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive with artists appreciative of the level of care and planning that made them feel really supported. Our gratitude in turn for the courage and craft shown by all the artists who participated.

Big thanks to the Roundhouse staff and volunteers, and the groups who participated: Gallery Gachet, The Art Studios, and Coast Mental Health. We succeeded in bringing some of our shining outsiders a little more inside the public’s awareness, while boosting a sense of community and confidence.”

Once known as Art Brut, Outsider Art refers to the work of any artist who has little or no contact with the mainstream art world, often including low-income, visionary, folk, and aboriginal artists, and artists with mental health diagnoses. Outsider Art fairs and festivals are held in London, New York, and Paris. Given Vancouver’s number of outsider artists, we see tremendous value in this inclusive movement.*

The inaugural Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival offers access to audiences, patrons, peers, community and learning to artists who do not currently have access to mainstream markets or cultural institutions.

Unlike many art fairs, both performing and visual artists are invited to share their work, build their skills, and strengthen their connections to community.

August 11-12, 2017
Community Arts Council of Vancouver
Roundhouse Community Centre, Vancouver, BC
FREE ADMISSION
Map & Directions

Exhibition & Sales
Friday from 11 AM – 9 PM
Saturday from 10 AM – 4 PM

Friday, August 11
12 PM – Artist Demonstration
4 PM – Opening Reception
7 PM – “Illicit” Workshop Performance

Saturday, August 12
10 AM – “Business Basics for Artists” Workshop
12 PM – Artist Demonstration
1 PM – Lively Arts Showcase with Global Party Starters, Andrea Hollebakken, Mitcholos Touchie, M. Pyress Flame, Highs and Lows Choir, John Jaworski and Jan Cameron, Minah Lee, Claire Love Wilson, Victoria Gibson, Andrea Welsink Dance

*It is rarely recognized how, throughout history, art created by those who identify as “outsiders” profoundly influences trends, aesthetics, and evolution of cultural thought within the mainstream. Outsider Art can be evocative, prophetic, subversive, and can draw our attention to cultural legacies and understandings that are often marginalized, yet that profoundly shape our society.

There are as many definitions of Outsider Arts as there are artists who identify as outsiders. The Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival aims to create a space for dialogue, exploration, and shared discovery of what Outsider Arts means here, in this place, at this time, and what its contribution is to how we understand ourselves as a society.