Prelude……Venus Lives! is a public art project that serves as a precursor to the upcoming exhibition and symposium, Emblematic Elusions: Facets of the Black Venus, set to take place at Gallery Gachet’s physical space in the fall of 2025.

Like its sister exhibition, Prelude……Venus Lives! foregrounds themes of Black female and queer sexuality, eroticism, and identity through interventions and remediations of the historical archetype of the Black Venus.

Using diverse artistic methods—including critical explorations of African cinema, investigations into the assemblage of Afro-Diasporic  cultural identity and heritage in the southern United States, and surrealist meditations on Afro-futuristic and historical visual languages—artists Afi Venessa Appiah, Kariyana Calloway-Scott, and Praise Etiosa Godswill visualize the registers of Black feminist subjectivity and explore the uses of the erotic as a visual language and an emancipatory praxis.

Prelude.....Venus Lives! is supported by the Hastings Crossings Business Association and presented in partnership with Artspeak Gallery.

On view starting February 10th, 2025, outside 118 and 130 W Hastings Street, 320 and 428 Carrall Street

The Gachet Writers Group is a democratically run inclusive writers group that provides space to share stories, receive feedback from peers, take part in writing exercises, and hold discussions. Each session includes time for stream of consciousness writing. Facilitated by Bruce Ray.

Fridays, 10:00am to Noon at Carnegie Community Centre (until Gachet's renovation is completed), 401 Main St, Vancouver, BC V6A 2T7.

At the Japanese Hall on Mondays starting Oct. 7, 2-4pm. Room 4F. The address is 487 Alexander St, Vancouver, BC V6A 1C6.

Community members are invited to drop-in and participate in an open studio environment with facilitators (Kat & Indigo), art materials, and snacks. The facilitation is supportive and there to expand artists' material and conceptual repertoire if desired, or simply there to provide a safe space to create artwork and social connections, on their own terms.

Materials available for participants include pastels, acrylic paint, brushes, felt pens, paper, collage materials, and canvases (dependant on availability).