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Rape jokes are everywhere. But who are the people telling them? Are they ever OK, let alone funny? What if the people telling rape jokes were survivors? Rape is Real and Everywhere is what happens when comedians who have survived rape share their experience and joke it out. Prepare yourself for hilarity, cathartic honesty and old-fashioned vulnerability. Produced by Heather Jordan Ross and Emma Cooper, hosted by Emma Cooper and featuring some of Vancouver’s best comedians including Vanessa Woznow, Mark Hughes, Tia Jeannette, Amanda Smith, Shane Clark and Jane Stanton. There’s a slick piece of East Van graffiti that, in elegant cursive, reads: “Rape is Real and Everywhere.” It is, and we can talk and joke about it openly, together.

Featuring Flavia, Christel Chan, Jane Q Cheng, Minjoo Kim, Chelsea O’Byrne and Rachel Wada, Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down takes an inquisitive look at how nostalgia serves as a point of reference for both identity and art. The six local artists explore how memory provides an ongoing context for all of our thoughts and ideas, despite paradoxically being an unreliable source of information. Drawing from their own individual memories, they aim to find vestiges of the past hiding in the darkest corners of the present.

Click here to see photos from the show on Flickr >

Thanks to the Fox Cabaret for hosting our afterparty.

Ever since Flavia could hold a pen, she’s been drawing rainbows, hearts, and cats with spikes. Her kindergarten teacher suggested she attend Emily Carr University of Art & Design. And that’s just what she did. In 2015, Flavia graduated from Emily Carr University of Art and Design with a major in illustration. Her childhood included a large amount of time vegetating with a gazillion picture books (which were stored in an unplugged fridge) and her beloved television set. The TV and pictures from the pages of children’s book fueled her imagination and continue to inspire her today.

Jane Q Cheng is a Vancouver-based artist. Her interests focus on creating dialogue between illustration and contemporary art practices and finding spaces where the traditional and experimental overlap. Through various topics, she takes advantage of what she sees as illustration’s central yet peripheral standing in contemporary art discourse.

Christel Chan is an illustrator and designer with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts (Illustration concentration) from Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, Canada. She spent most of her life in Hong Kong but moved to Vancouver to pursue her interest in art and design. In her paintings, she enjoys creating fantastical worlds by mixing the ordinary and the magical.

Rachel Wada is an interdisciplinary illustrator currently based in Vancouver, BC. She is a recent graduate of Emily Carr University’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program with a focus in illustration. Her artistic practice involves intricate illustrations executed in a variety of mediums from watercolor, ink, graphite and gouache. She also utilizes digital media and silkscreen printing to produce her 2D illustrations. Her inspirations include traditional Chinese painting, ukiyo-e painting, tattoos and editorial illustration. Rachel has participated in a handful of art exhibitions around Vancouver, and her piece has recently been accepted in the Society of Illustrators: Student Scholarship Competition, where her piece was displayed in the student exhibition in New York.

Minjoo Kim is an illustrator based both in Seoul and Vancouver. In her illustrations, she captures the moments and the feelings that pass us by unnoticed. She believes that the most mundane moments can be the happiest moments in life, once stopped and looked closely into. She wishes to create illustrations and stories that enable the viewers to enjoy that moment and to help them revisit and cherish their own stories that they have missed in their life.

The myth of the tattooed woman is of her wildness and unpredictable nature. The idea that “innocent” untattooed woman are the “better” choice for intimate partners… it’s bullshit of course. Relationships are built out of something deeper than what’s just below the skin. Perhaps you’ve missed out on someone amazing by not looking deeper. These are portraits of all the beautiful, tattooed women that “got away.” The One That Got Away features watercolour works of tattooed female subjects from Gwen D’arcy and Aaron White. This show also hosted a live flash tattoo event from Studio Nest on Saturday July 9.

Click here to see photos from the show on Flickr >

Gwen D’arcy is a self taught Canadian artist Who grew up in Scarborough, Ontario. Her past shows include the “31 and Under” artists showcase at Gallery 223 in Nanaimo, BC in 2012 and a limited showcase at Make Studios also in Nanaimo, BC (2013). After a long break from the gallery scene Gwen is making a strong come back with vibrant surrealistic images of tattooed women bound to make you fall in love. When she’s not drawing or painting Gwen is the Brand Cordinator for a fast scaling company, mother to two beautiful children and a proud dog owner. Gwen now lives in Vancouver.

Aaron White graduated from Sheridan’s Classical Animation Program in 2004. He spent a few years working on Saturday morning cartoons before moving on to the video game industry. Since 2007, he has been a concept artist and FX animator for Nexon, Acronym Games, and Roadhouse doing work for Disney, Fox, Activision, Tecmo and Capcom. Happily settled in Vancouver with two carts, a glowing bicycle and as much art as he can fit into the week. His personal work focuses on painted portraiture of alternative and burlesque.

Hosted by stand-up comic and New Yorker cartoonist Jacob Samuel, comedians James Kennedy, Morgan Brayton, Brent Constantine, Randee Neumeyer, and Mark Nesbitt explore the follies of youth.

Brent Constantine and guest co-host Jacob Samuel present a comedy show featuring some of the city’s best local comedians stories about Vancouver, adjusting to life here, and leaving home. Guests this month include James Kennedy, Victoria Banner, Brad Dorion, Alain Williams, and Katie Burrell.

Join local author Fraser Nixon at the launch of his second book “Straight to the Head” published by Arsenal Pulp Press. Set in Vancouver 1983, this sexy crime thriller is filled with crooked cops, dirty money, dangerous women, and one man caught in the middle.

“…so swift, like a convertible soft-top transforms a Mazda Miata, one House Team was made to Two…”

For the first time ever, here are TWO HOUSE TEAMS. And to celebrate, you’ll see TWO HALVES of IMPRO-COM, all in one of the best venues for comedy in town — Hot Art Wet City. In the First Half, you’ll meet “Phil”, featuring Amy Elderkin, Ronald Dario, Geoff Walter and Racquel Belmonte. DELIGHTFUL! In the Second Half you’ll have the pleasure to meet “Harriet”, featuring Shane McLean, Ryan Anderson, DrewBoy Clarke, Malcolm McLeod and Jenny Rube with guest monologist Brent Constantine. WONDERFUL!

Rape jokes are everywhere. But who are the people telling them? Are they ever OK, let alone funny? What if the people telling rape jokes were survivors? Rape is Real and Everywhere is what happens when comedians who have survived rape share their experience and joke it out. Prepare yourself for hilarity, cathartic honesty and old-fashioned vulnerability. Produced by Heather Jordan Ross and Emma Cooper, hosted by Emma Cooper and featuring some of Vancouver’s best comedians including Sherri-Lynn Gamracy, Randee Neumeyer, Chelsey Stuyt, Shane Clark, Amanda Rae Smith, and Jane Stanton. There’s a slick piece of East Van graffiti that, in elegant cursive, reads: “Rape is Real and Everywhere.” It is, and we can talk and joke about it openly, together.

Amber Harper-Young & Brent Constantine host Vancouverite, a comedy show featuring some of the city’s best local comedians stories about Vancouver, adjusting to life here, and leaving home. Guests include Ben McGinnis, Gavin Clarkson, Abdul Aziz, Jacob Samuel, Lauren McGibbon and Sophie Buddle.

Break out your yearbooks, it’s time for the Yearbook Show. Join comedian Graham Clark and his friends Aaron Read and Katie Ellen Humphries as they explore their high school yearbooks and the yearbooks of the audience (bring your yearbook!).