Book launch and symposium: Beginning with the Seventies

Please join us for a book launch and series of attendant events—readings, discussions, lectures—to celebrate the publication of our Beginning with the Seventies project. Looking at the relationship between art, archives and activism, the Beginning with the Seventies publication begins with the 1970s, an era when social movements—feminism, environmentalism, LGBTQ2SIA+ rights, Indigenous rights, access to health services and housing—began to coalesce into models of self-organization that overlapped with the production of art and culture. Noting the resurgence of art practice involved with social activism and an increasing interest in the 1970s from younger producers, the Belkin connected with diverse archives and activist networks to bring forward these histories, to commission new works of art and writing and to provide a space for discussion and debate. Beginning with the Seventies brings contemporary art practices into active dialogue with the past, interweaving archive with artwork, poetry, prose and critical investigation.

Over seventy prominent artists and writers, and works from 1969 to 2019, are featured in the series of four exhibitions. GLUT is concerned with language, depictions of the woman reader as an artistic genre and the potential of reading as performed resistance. Circling around the embodied archive, Radial Change explores the elusive histories of Helen Goodwin’s choreography and her influence on the international interdisciplinary art scene of the 1970s. Collective Acts taps into the generative potential of archival research by artists experimenting with collective organizing and cooperative production. Finally, bringing together research, material, media, testimony and ceremony, Hexsa’a̱m: To Be Here Always challenges the concept that the practices of First Peoples are simply part of a past heritage, by bringing forward the ways that art and culture can bring new realities into being. Beginning with the Seventies is co-published by the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and Information Office.

Attendance is free, but space is limited; to ensure a spot, please RSVP by Friday, February 21 to each event at belkin.rsvp [​at​] ubc.ca.

Program of events

Friday, March 6, 2020
Musqueam Cultural Centre, 4000 Musqueam Avenue, Vancouver
Please note, there is parking available at the Musqueam Cultural Centre. If you are taking transit, the closest bus stop is at West 41st Avenue and Crown Street, an approximate 15-minute walk to the Musqueam Cultural Centre.

5pm: Musqueam welcome
Introductory remarks: Shelly Rosenblum
Opening presentation: “Scholarship as Ancestral Practice,” Sarah Hunt
6pm: Community feast

Saturday, March 7, 2020
Leon and Thea Koerner University Centre, 6331 Crescent Road, UBC

1pm: “Beginning with the Seventies: Art, Archives and Activism,” Lorna Brown
2pm: “Anarchival Encounters: Colonial / Canonical Ruptures,” Thea Quiray Tagle, Kate Hennessy and Denise Ryner with Cait McKinney as moderator
4pm: “Activist Archives: Art and Feminism,” Lisa Darms, Jaqueline Mabey and Allyson Mitchell with Erin Silver as moderator
5:30pm: Dinner
7pm: “A Reading and Conversation,” Lisa Robertson and Yaniya Lee
8pm: Closing reception

Symposium conceived by Shelly Rosenblum.