A workshop exploring mark-making that you can touch!
Free art-making workshops designed to be accessible to Blind, d/Deaf, and Non-Verbal communities, as well as non-Disabled community members. Participants will explore making marks and illustrations using plastic/metal to create tactile drawings through impressions, consider how to create a tactile language to express ideas, and consider materials and touch as narrative tools. Hosted by Vancouver Placemaking: Johnny Tiger, Kay Slater, Keimi Nakashima Ochoa.
Workshops are the same program, hosted on 2 different dates. Please register for one of the selected dates, spaces are limited.
Note: Workshop not recommended for children under 7 years of age. Children aged 12 and under MUST be accompanied by a registered adult.
This workshop has two goals.
To provide a space to try tactile mark-making and consider how art can be touched.
To think about materials and prototyping (or trying things out).
When we try things for the first time, even when we are experienced or professional artists, we don’t need to use new or perfect materials. That’s for later, when we know what we want to do and are ready to make something for keeps. Before that, we can use imperfect or scratched materials or things that we plan to throw out or recycle.
In this workshop, participants are encouraged to see their recycling bin as another place to find low-stakes materials as we explore tactile mark-making techniques. By low-stakes, we mean you don’t have to be stressed about being perfect or making something that turns out great, because we’re just practicing. When we’re done, the materials we have tried can go back into the recycling bin, or can be taken apart to be used again for another prototype or try-things-out project!
Facilitation is provided in English, but workshop facilitators can communicate in French, Mandarin, Spanish and ASL. Written instructions are available in English, French, Spanish, and Traditional Chinese.
Workshop hosted in connection to Johnny Tai’s exhibition at the Richmond Cultural Centre Annex, Zodiac Crossroads.
About the Presenters:
Johnny (Tiger) Tai is a blind and partially deaf artist and martial arts instructor based in Richmond. His tactile artworks explore culture, identity, and accessibility. He has exhibited at grunt gallery, the Italian Cultural Centre, and the Outlet Gallery, and was a 2023 artist-in-residence at grunt gallery. In 2024, he received grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and BC Arts Council to develop Zodiac Crossroads with collaborators Kay Slater and Keimi Nakashima-Ochoa. Tai is also committed to making art inclusive through his workshops on non-visual tactile practices.
Kay Slater‘s artistic practice explores value as it relates to process and expectations. Multidisciplinary means that they work in a variety of ways to make and produce work; such as illustration, paper and cardboard sculpture, creative description, videography, game development, radical silence, writing, and discussion. They identify as a “Creative Problem Solver”. They enjoy creating and maintaining spaces where people can explore, learn, experience, fail, feel, and create!
Kay is queer, white, and hard of hearing. They cannot hear you in busy spaces and prefer to communicate in writing. In quiet spaces, hearing fatigue is at play. Kay subscribes to the philosophy of the New Sincerity, which is a philosophy or trend that tries to expand upon and break away from concepts of postmodernist irony. It also strives to “be more awesome”.
Without the liberation of Black and Indigenous, Trans, Deaf, Disabled and Sick, Black Women, there cannot be freedom. In all things, Kay hopes they are building towards that future and asks that you tell them when they are not.
Keimi Nakashima-Ochoa is an immigrant settler of mixed heritage. He was born on the lands of the Pur’hépecha, the Coca, the Tecuexe, and the Huichol. She spent most of her youth in Amiskwacîwâskahikan. They are now building his life on the ancestral territories of Xwməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and Səlilwətaɬ people and families. Keimi is a Disabled, bilingual, learner, worker and artist. Her art practice incorporates creative access, writing, weaving, printmaking, and more. His work and worldview have been shaped through his learning of Disability Justice, and Black Feminist theory. They are interested in anti-colonial research and learning, accessible spaces, and liberated futures.
Also check out other Workshops in Richmond, Arts events in Richmond, Exhibitions in Richmond.
