Performance & ScreeningsTalks
In Search of Queertopias
Artist Talk with Rylan Friday
27 July 2023
6:00PM
Rylan Friday, The Sound of You Collapsing, single channel video, 11:49, looped, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
Guest Curator: Nathan Clark
Participants: Rylan Friday
Join us for a screening of artist Rylan Friday’s The Sound of You Collapsing as featured In Search of Queertopias.
The screening will be followed by an artist talk and audience Q&A, moderated by guest curator, Nathan Clark. The conversation will explore the development of themes for the film, as well as a discussion on the intersection of queer and Indigenous communities, and the future of queer community spaces as sites of healing and positive growth.
The Sound of You Collapsing is a semi-autobiographical short film that explores emotional health and self-care in gay male relationships. The film is an amalgamation of lived experiences from 2015 to mid-2017 where Rylan was so enamored by these relationships that, like the film’s protagonist Noah, he forgot to look after himself. Rylan sees himself in Noah and his journey toward balance. The film acts as a goodbye letter to previous friends and relationships through the exposure of toxic patterns and exchanges—drug culture, toxic masculinity, past traumas—that can often go unnoticed.
Please note that this film may not be suitable for all audiences. The film includes scenes of sexual intimacy, domestic violence, and substance abuse.
This exhibition is presented with support from the Killy Foundation and the Audain Endowment for Curatorial Studies through the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at The University of British Columbia.
Registration
This event is free and open to all. Please RSVP here:
RegisterParticipant Bios
Nathan Clark
Nathan (Nate) Clark (they/ them) is a genderfluid nonbinary second year candidate in the Master of Art History in Critical Curatorial Studies at the University of British Columbia, where they also received their Bachelor of Art History and Museum Anthropology. Nathan currently works and resides in Vancouver on the stolen and ancestral lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixwh (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. Nathan’s research focuses on the phenomenology and narrative poetics of virtual reality and digital immersive installations and the importance of embodied, affective relations between the viewer and the work of art. They also research digital queerscapes and the disembodiment of users within cyberspaces, and how artists are responding to this “Wild West” of new mediums and artistic processes. The body is the primary point of concern in understanding how we interact with this new “ontological turn.” Nathan will be pursuing their PhD of Art History at the University of Toronto in Fall 2023.
Rylan Friday
Rylan Friday (he/him) is a multi-faceted, award-winning filmmaker and curator from Cote First Nation, Saskatchewan who currently works and resides in Vancouver on the stolen and ancestral lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixwh (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations. His focus is to bring honest representations to the LGBTQ2+ and Indigenous communities. He produced and implemented a peer-to-peer mentorship for Trevor Mack’s debut feature, Portraits From a Fire. He recently won the Kevin Tierney Emerging Producer Award, CMPA Indie Screen Awards, Prime Time Ottawa 2022 and the Leo Award for Best Motion Picture for his efforts on Mack’s debut feature. Rylan works include: Terror/Forming (2022) with plans of it becoming his debut feature film; The Sound of You Collapsing (2023); and, Musk (2023). Rylan has programmed for VIFF’s Catalyst Mentorship Program, and curated the highly successful #Indigeneity series for Reel Causes. Rylan was also the lead curator for the Who We Are Indigenous film series in collaboration with VIFF and the Museum of Vancouver.