Pride in Art/Queer Arts Festival

The Pride in Art Society (PiA) produces, presents and exhibits with a curatorial vision favouring challenging, thought-provoking contemporary art that pushes boundaries and initiates dialogue, including through the Queer Arts Festival (QAF), an annual artist-run, transdisciplinary festival, and SUM Gallery, one of the only permanent spaces dedicated to the presentation of queer art worldwide.

PiA brings diverse communities together to support artistic risk-taking, incite creative collaboration and experimentation and celebrate the rich heritage of queer artists and art. We harness the visceral power of the arts to inspire recognition, respect and visibility of people who transgress gender and sexual norms.

The Queer Arts Festival is an annual artist-run professional Transdisciplinary arts festival at the Roundhouse. Recognized among the top three festivals of its kind worldwide, QAF produces, presents, and exhibits challenging, thought-provoking work that pushes boundaries and initiates dialogue. Each year, the festival theme ties together a curated visual art exhibition, performing arts series, workshops, artist talks, panels, and media art screenings.

QAF began in 1998 as Pride in Art, founded by Two-Spirit artist Robbie Hong, Black artist Jeffery Gibson, and a collective of queer visual artists mounting an annual community art exhibition. In 2006, spearheaded by artists SD Holman and Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa, Pride in Art incorporated as a nonprofit, mounting the first multidisciplinary Queer Arts Festival in 2008, and founding SUM gallery in 2018. QAF has incited dozens of artistic milestones, notably the commissioning and world premiere of Canada’s first lesbian opera, When the Sun Comes Out by Leslie Uyeda and Rachel Rose in 2013; TRIGGER, the 25th anniversary exhibition for Kiss & Tell’s notorious Drawing the Line project; Jeremy Dutcher’s first full-length Vancouver concert; Cris Derksen’s monumental Orchestral Powwow; and producing the award-winning world premiere of the play Camera Obscura (hungry ghosts), Lesley Ewen’s fantastical reimagining of multimedia titan Paul Wong’s early career.

Since incorporation, QAF has developed from a tiny, grass-roots, volunteer-run, community-based organization to a professional cutting-edge festival receiving funding from all three levels of government, employing 9 year-round and seasonal staff, and providing hundreds of hours of volunteer opportunities yearly.

PiA has presented over 2,000 artists in more than 450 events, welcomed more than 100,000 patrons, and incited the creation of dozens of new Canadian works.