Evann Siebens and Keith Doyle: Pedestrian Protest

Butterflies in spirit, "Pedestrian Protest at Offsite," 2021

still from the video for multimedia installation, Courtesy of the Artist

Pedestrian Protest considers themes of gathering and protests along Georgia Street— a connective artery that runs through the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəyəm (Musqueam), Sḵwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil- Waututh) nations. Evann Siebens collaborated with nearly 50 local dancers, visual artists, and activists, filming their individual or collective performances and combining them into a collage of media and movement that maps our changing city.

Pedestrian Protest includes 24 media performances that each reference a historical or personal protest, such as Butterflies in Spirit, a dance group consisting of family members of missing and murdered Indigenous women that raise awareness of the many lives that have been taken. Singular voices including, xoma-leon phîlip babur embody the Black Lives Matter movement and #ShutItAllDown protests in their homeland Namibia, while Sophia Wolfe enacts climate action, and Margaret Dragu references her activist performance work that began in the 1970s and continues today. Created under the safety restrictions of COVID-19 including physical distancing during the film production, the individual performances are combined into a collage of media and movement that maps our changing city.

The performances take place along Georgia Street, which begins at Boundary Road bordering Burnaby and flows west through East Vancouver, over Commercial Drive, through Strathcona, and into Chinatown. Many protests, actions, and calls for change have taken place along this connective artery. Sites of action include the former Canada Post building, the Georgia Viaduct, Strathcona Park, Trump Tower, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. Each location, chosen by a collaborator, is uniquely emblematic and linked to specific histories or present places of demonstration and activism.

Keith Doyle responds to this mapping of the city through his sculptural intervention, referring to the precarious and temporary conditions of Vancouver’s constantly changing built environment. Georgia Street is continually dismantled and reconstructed, veiled and revealed, symbolizing a material manifestation of the performative and political body.

Pedestrian Protest is organized by the Vancouver Art Gallery on behalf of the City of Vancouver’s Public Art Program and is curated by Diana Freundl, Interim Chief Curator/Associate Director.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Evann Siebens’ lens-based practice explores the human body as an archival site and the politics of the female gaze. She danced with the National Ballet of Canada and the Bonn Ballett in Germany before studying film production at New York University. Recent exhibitions and screenings include the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 2021; Kunstinstituut Melly (formerly Witte de With), Rotterdam, 2020; Wil Aballe Art Projects, Vancouver, 2019; Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, 2018; and Burrard Arts Foundation (Façade Fest), Vancouver, 2017. Siebens’ films have recently screened at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City and Light Moves Festival of Screendance in Limerick, Ireland, where she was awarded the Prize for Outstanding Overall Work. Her work at A Performance Affair in Brussels was featured on the front page of the New York Times International Edition in 2019. Siebens is currently based in Vancouver and represented by Wil Aballe Art Projects.

Keith Doyle is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Design + Dynamic Media and the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Emily Carr University of Art + Design (ECUAD), Vancouver. He holds both a BFA and an MFA in Sculpture and maintains an active material practice. As a post-secondary educator, Doyle focuses on product, craft, and industrial design. He is a founding faculty member and current Co-director of Material Matters, a faculty-led and student-driven material research centre at ECUAD where research-creation activities and design-led research partnerships are enabled by funding from the National Research Council Canada and the Canadian Councils for research (CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC). Doyle presents, promotes, and exhibits nationally and abroad on his collaborative research activities and material practice. Recent exhibitions include Wil Aballe Art Projects and the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 2017, and Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, 2018. He was a Resident Artist of the ACME International Residencies Programme, London, UK; a Banff New Media Institute alumnus (2006, 2007); and a former Artist’s Research Medialab fellow at Dance Theater Workshop, New York.

Performances will be scheduled throughout summer and fall.

Dates and details will be announced shortly, please refer to the Gallery’s website for details.

Image Credits:

Top Image: Butterflies in spirit, still from the video for multimedia installation, Pedestrian Protest at Offsite,

Vancouver Art Gallery April 9-October 11, 2021, Courtesy of the Artist

Bottom Image: Left to Right: Margaret Dragu, Sophia Wolfe, xomaleon Phîlp babur, stills from the video for multimedia installation, Pedestrian Protest at Offsite, Vancouver Art Gallery April 9-October 11, 2021, Courtesy of the Artist