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Summer Block Party: Rungh Readings with Hogan’s Alley Society
Summer Block Party was a partnership event with Hogan’s Alley Society and Rungh held on Saturday, August 24 at Nora Hendrix Place (258 Union Street) . The event featured an “archive reactivation” of Rungh’s Antiracism issue (Volume 4, Number 1&2) (Guest Edited by Ashok Mathur and Sourayan Mookerjea). As noted in the Press Release for the event, Rungh’s Executive Director Zool Suleman noted: "Rungh is thrilled to be working in partnership with Hogan's Alley Society on this archive 'reactivation' project. Rungh's Antiracism issue featured pointed and political work on the theme by Wayde Compton, Phinder Dulai, Peter Hudson, and many others. This event is a part of the newly relaunched Rungh Readings events". Adam Rudder, co-chair of the Hogan’s Alley Society stated: "I have long been an admirer of Rungh's engagements with notions of 'multiculturalism', 'race' and 'belonging', and their deployments of the Beautiful to speak (another) truth to the power of the Ugly. We welcome this opportunity to coordinate efforts and collaborate on themes and topics that are, in my opinion, central to the work we do as well.
Thank you to the City of Vancouver for support through VIVA Vancouver, Cultural Services and the NEFC Plan.
Darcy McFadden at Summer Block Party
For his “archive reactivation” piece at the Summer Block Party, McFadden chose to read “A letter to the Maru 1914, Dated 1994” by Phinder Dulai which later was published in Dulai’s book dream/arteries in 2014. In the introduction to his reading, McFadden notes how when researching a play about local hero Joe Fortes, he had come across images of South Asian’s on the Komagata Maru. In addition to reading from Dulai’s poetry, McFadden also read his original short story, The Country Experience.
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Patrick Pouponneau at Summer Block Party
In his introduction, artist and community activist, Patrick Pouponneau, with his "NOT TODAY COLONIZER" shirt, recounted his work with Nora Hendrix Place as he located himself and his work within the Hogan's Alley community. From Rungh's Antiracism issue, he "activates" Wayde Compton’s powerful “Poem for Mumia Abu-Jamal and not for art's sake”, with it's refrain "what're we gonna do? FREE MUMIA!". Pouponneau also performed his original piece The word is love, is love.
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Naomi Gracechild at Summer Block Party
Naomi Gracechild, a multidisciplinary artist, sings the introduction to Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come in her performance before "activating" Himani Bannerji’s A Letter from the Gulf which reflects upon the "first" Gulf War 1990-1991 (Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm) under George H.W. Bush. She also reads from her work in progress, The Beast, which references the author's relationship with her hair.
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