Artspeak is an exhibition and programming space encouraging dialogue between contemporary visual art and writing. Artspeak is committed to intersectional participation and exchange.

233 Carrall St
Vancouver BC V6B2J2
Wednesday-Saturday
12PM to 6PM

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On View

10,000 Flowers Bloom: On Women Artists and the Sources of Self-regard

Opening Reception May 1 6pm

In conversation, Veronica Dorsett, Preetika Rajgariah, and Gio Swaby tend to quotidian aestheticized spaces of adornment and ritual. Textile, illustration, collage, and embroidery breathe life into haptic expressionism, presenting an intimate perspective motivated by the multiplicity of their realities while reflecting on the role of portraiture not only in art's historical intervention but also in its ability to sow meaningful interrogations of women's subjectivity. The exhibition explores the inexhaustible desire to see oneself through visual culture and storytelling, framing self-imaging or portraiture within cross-disciplinary material practices. An intimate study of figure, form, and radical self-making summons an approach to shaping cultural memory through restorative representational acts of care and self-proclamation, conceptualizing a tactile record of existence. The exposition engages self-exploratory rendering that is sensory, coded, and reflexive. A coalescence of new media and traditional practices reveals the dogmatic and transformative potential of personal and collective narratives—the historical, cultural, present self, and imagined futures of womanhood. 






Recent Publications

10,000 Flowers Bloom- On Women Artists and the Sources of Self- Regard

Postscript

On July 11 2025 10,000 Flowers Bloom- On Women Artists and the Sources of Self-Regard participating artists’ Veronica Dorsett, Gio Swaby and Preetika Rajgariah (moderated by  Artspeak Director/curator Nya Lewis)  gathered to reflect on lineages of Black and Brown women working in textile and assemblage and the state of their own practices’ as artists who engage in material storytelling that confronts histories of colonialism, gendered labor, diaspora, and intergenerational wisdom, emerging from contexts of care, survival, and communal resilience. Their practices are not only aesthetic but insurgent, foregrounding the body, memory, and inherited knowledge as central to cultural and political expression, constituting a powerful and enduring force within global cultural production. In their hands, fabric, thread, and found materials become instruments of both healing and critique, archival tools through which suppressed histories are unearthed, and visions of self and collective are articulated. The featured text includes excerpts from the recorded interview.

Free download- Click “digital texts” to read!

Upcoming Programs

A Leap//Germain Ekra

July 24- 29 2025

Opening Reception July 24 2025 6:30pm- 8:30pm at 233 Carrall St.

A Leap marks the debut exhibition for emerging painter Germain Ekra, whose self-taught practice navigates the layered terrain of portraiture, and the politics of representation. With a distinct visual language influenced by Cubism and the raw expressivity of abstraction, Ekra embraces painting as both excavation and invention—an ongoing act of becoming on and off the canvas. Rather than portraying likeness, the self-portraits in A Leap are not resolved or polished; they pulse with movement, doubt, and discovery. Using oil, acrylic, ink, and charcoal Ekra, pushes painting into a space of vibrant improvisation. In alignment with our mandate to foster and support first-time exhibitors, Artspeak extends the gallery to early-career artists through resources, visibility, and critical engagement. A Leap special presentation runs July 24 to 29, 2025.


Off-site

Character City by Deon Feng is on view at Artspeak Offsite, 320 Carrall St, from May 17, 2025 to August 26, 2025

"This is a space with a lot of character in a heritage building and lovely part of Vancouver"

— Facebook Marketplace


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Artist Statement

Installation and text by Deon Feng

Curated by Bel Sihan 

Deon Feng is an artist and student in the dual BA program at SciencesPo (Paris Institute of Political Studies) and University of British Columbia. They are informed first and foremost by their own lived experience between Northern China, Canada, and France, as a result of this fragmented biography, their practice is an interdisciplinary mix of photography, installation, theory, and other hybrids.

Bel Sihan (they/them) is an arts and culture worker, and DIY space maker on the unceded lands of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ (Tsleil-Waututh). Their practice (life, really) mostly includes hosting spaces, animated discussions, and making art with friends. They practice grounding in the truths of Body, Moment, Inheritance. To them, art is a technology of encoding, holding, negotiating, truths in multiplicity. 


Offsite is made possible by the generosity of the Cheeky Proletariat. If you are interested in exhibiting in the offsite please email office@artspeak.ca. Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis.