Façade Festival 2019
Natalie Purschwitz + Hyung-Min Yoon

Façade Festival is a week-long, monumental public art project and cultural event that takes place from sunset to midnight every evening from September 8 to 14 on the Georgia Street façade of the Vancouver Art Gallery, above the šxʷƛ̓ənəq Xwtl’e7énk Square.

A selection of BC contemporary artists have been commissioned to create 10 stunning, site-specific works of art. Using the technology known as ‘projection mapping,’ the works have been tailored specifically for the Vancouver Art Gallery’s iconic architecture and will be projected over its Georgia Street façade, covering the building with moving, dynamic artwork. Façade Festival is an immersive, large-scale artistic experience that will be shared by tens of thousands of attendees.

The project speaks to the pervasiveness of digital forms in modern life and contemplates the role that new technologies play in contemporary art, while engaging the public in a grand architectural intervention free of charge.

Façade Festival is presented in partnership between Burrard Arts Foundation, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and technical partner Go2 Productions, with support from the City of Vancouver, the Department of Canadian Heritage, QuadReal Property Group, Tourism Vancouver, Viva Vancouver, Can Design, the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, and Savoury City Catering & Events.

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 12
NATALIE PURSCHWITZ + HYUNG-MIN YOON

NATALIE PURSCHWITZ

ABOUT THE PROJECT: A costume, like a vehicle of transformation, allows the wearer to be temporarily transported into the persona or character of another. Through an offering of textures, colours and patterns, “Drapings” is an attempt to do just that for the building at 750 Hornby Street. Once housing the Provincial Courts and now the current home of the Vancouver Art Gallery, this commanding and impassive stone edifice belies its interior vibrancy and warmth.  Like wind rustling the leaves of a tree, “Drapings” stretches our perception of a being that is generally seen to have little or no agency allowing us to enjoy an alternate possibility.

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Natalie Purschwitz seeks out spaces between art, design, performance and daily life. Through her visual art practice, she considers how materials connect with ideological production and quotidian experiences and, in this way, her research lies at the intersection of anthropology, mythology, materiality and form.  Clothing has often been an integral part of her work.  She is interested in how clothing functions as a material, a language and a conceptual framework that can be used to examine cultural production. She has shown her work nationally and internationally at the Vancouver Art Gallery, The Polygon Gallery (North Vancouver, BC), Plug In ICA (Winnipeg, MB), the Japanese Canadian National Museum (Burnaby, BC), the McMichael Canadian Art Collection (Kleingburg, ON), the Prince Takamato Gallery (Tokyo, Japan), Canada House (London, England) and AGX Galerie (Tehran, Iran).

HYUNG-MIN YOON

ABOUT THE PROJECT: “Celebration” brings the phrase “Who Can Stop Us From Celebrating,” which is both private and political, into a highly visible public space. Progressing from illegible to legible, the words can function as either a question or as a statement. We bring one or the other into reality, depending on how we interpret the meaning of these words. “Celebration” raises questions around the nature of the structures of power and authority that govern the spaces that we inhabit.

ARTIST BIO: Hyung-Min Yoon is a visual artist working between Vancouver, Canada, and Seoul, Korea. She received her BFA at the Korea National University of the Arts and her MFA at Chelsea College of Art & Design in London. Her research and text-based art practice draws inspiration from literature and early art history. Through installation, photography, video and print, her gestures explores the broad notion of translation through re-contextualization. Her work has been exhibited in Korea, Canada, UK, Switzerland and Austria, and is in the collections of Vancouver Art Gallery, Arario Museum, Wumin Art Centre and Gyeonggi Creation Centre.