Dry Happy Hour by Paisley Eva + Slow Socials by The Only Animal

BARKING SPHINX AND THE ONLY ANIMAL PRESENT: UNWRITTEN WEEKEND

Dry Happy Hour, music and (soft) drinks by Paisley Eva & Slow Socials, a gathering by The Only Animal

Featuring live improvised music by Paisley Eva, Elisa Thorn and James Meger; spoken word by Tawahum; art exhibit by Jalapeno Spring, Antiquity Thief, Lee Hutzulak, Rob "Shockk" Matharu, and Melissa Hubert.

At Hargrove (Alley entrance of 150 E 3rd)

Sunday, September 22nd

4:30PM (doors)

Dry Happy Hour: free. Optional participation to Slow Socials: by donation (in the venue).

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Music and (soft) drinks by Paisley Eva

Hailing from the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Nation village of Eslha7an, Ta7talíya Paisley Eva’s been filling local club, party, and festival dance floors with a high energy mix of obscure underground tracks and beloved classics for over ten years. Her choice, chance-taking selections are plucked from house, disco, new wave, pop, and whatever keeps people moving.

https://www.instagram.com/paisleyeva

paisleyeva.wordpress.com

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Slow Socials

The Only Animal presents Slow Socials, an ongoing series of gatherings that invites our communities to connect through relaxed textile creation, environmental readings, and musique d’ameublement ('furniture music'). For Slow Social #5, we’ll teach you how to create simple rope, aka ‘cordage’, from fibres you can find close to home, including fabric scraps, garden waste and leftover floofs from your hibernating craft projects. You can use cordage to create textured weavings, basketry, and yes - even *friendship bracelets*. Add your creations to our travelling textile installation, bring your own craft work, or catch up on some social coziness as we head into the dark months. We’ll provide materials and a beginner’s lesson at the start of the event.

The Only Animal (TOA) is an interdisciplinary arts company whose mission is to bring art and artists to the heart of the climate crisis. We prioritize long-term and porous relationships with our publics and our artist collaborators, shifting what we do in response to local curiosities and needs. Our current projects explore how slow practice can sensitize relationships between people and place and set the stage for joyful climate futures.

This event is PWYC/by donation. All proceeds go to support Two-Eyed Seeing: Ways of Being and Seeing, a multi-faceted Indigenous-led project by Coast Salish & Sahtu Dene artist, writer, storyteller Rosemary Georgeson and climate justice and human rights activist, performance artist and community facilitator Lara Aysal.

www.theonlyanimal.com

https://www.instagram.com/theonlyanimaltheatre/

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Featuring Featuring live improvised music by Paisley Eva, Elisa Thorn and James Meger; spoken word by Tawahum

Elisa Thorn

(eh-lee-sah) // trying to make the harp less boring

Elisa Thorn (eh-lee-sah) finds it hard to describe her music but lately has lovingly been calling it “mistrel-core”. A harpist known for her distinct contemporary use of the instrument, her sound draws influences from folk, indie, jazz, post-rock and experimental music. An insatiable collaborator, she is part of many projects including Gentle Party, HUE, and The Giving Shapes, but is currently focusing on her solo project, who recently recorded an album that will be released in Spring 2025.

www.instagram.com/elisathorn

https://www.facebook.com/vancouverharp

James Meger

James Meger is a Vancouver-based bassist, composer and producer working primarily in the fields of jazz, free improvisation and rock. His work has been showcased through national and international tours and through recording projects alongside artists including Darius Jones, Peggy Lee and Frazey Ford. He has composed music for bands, music theatre, and interdisciplinary dance, and is a member of the Sawdust Collector programming collective.

Tawahum

Tawahum is a Łutselkʼe Dene and Plains Nehiyaw spoken word poet from unceded Musqueam, Squamish & Tsleil-Waututh Territory (CKA Vancouver). Their Two-Spirit, Nonbinary Scorpio-moon angst boils over to showcase their sadboi rage. Having opened for Kimmortal and Vivek Shraya and with a BA in Creative Writing from KPU, Tawahum has performed poetry and hip-hop at countless festivals with poems featured in numerous publications. His land protection work versus Trans Mountain pipeline expansion had him face incarceration in 2020 which informed his debut music album, Bottled Lightning. Their poetry collection Cut to Fortress was published by Nightwood Editions with a new collection to come 2025.

https://www.instagram.com/tawahum/

https://linktr.ee/tawahum

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Art Exhibit by:

Jalapeno Spring

My name is April and I am a tattoo artist working on the unceded Territories of the Musqueam, Skxú7mesh and Tsleil-Waututh Lands a.k.a "Vancouver, BC". I have been tattooing for almost 8 years now. Before then I had been making art since as far back as I can remember. For art, my preferred medium is ink and pen drawings. I occasionally dabble in other print mediums such as linocuts. My work is usually described as dark and creepy, occasionally also described as delicate.

https://www.instagram.com/jalapenospring

Lee Hutzulak

For Unwritten Weekend, Lee Hutzulak has chosen pieces from his series, “The Meadow Variations”, including the two used for the festival poster. Created with a variety of markers, acrylic inks, and paints on paper, these works share a fascination with nature as it exists in urban spaces. Fanciful colour choices, and play with scale tip the works into abstraction. A second theme running through this work is ruin, with crumbling structures and sculptures referencing both antiquity and the Anthropocene. Lee Hutzulak has been exhibiting his drawings and paintings since the 90s.

www.instagram.com/leehutzulak/

https://leehutzulak.ca/

Rob "Shockk" Matharu

Ravinder "Shockk" Matharu is a local Vancouver musician and artist active in the arts. When not playing with Slip-ons and the Spitfires he is working on his compositions of image and as ambient sound artist Interior Design.Shockk captures our disappearing history through an archivists lens. Using natural light and long exposure to bring drama to a moment, Shockk's images show us how fleeting is time. Past Work include: Chinatown Then and Now Photo book, Neighbourhood Small Grants 2012; New West Banner Project 2016, Interior Design at the Shadboldt Centre 2017.

https://www.instagram.com/shockkmongoose

Melissa Hubert

For Unwritten Weekend, Melissa Hubert will showcase a projection of video works that explore themes of enhanced daily ambiance, and urban solitude.

Melissa is a Vancouver-Kamloops based multimedia video artist who blends her background in music and visual art. Originally a jazz and electronic flutist, she began exploring video art in 2020, collaborating with jazz artists. Her work merges mixed media of painting, light, liquids and sustainable materials, as well as photos, vhs and animation to create visually rich videos to improvisational and orchestral music. Collaborations with groups like The Hard Rubber Orchestra and artists like Ron Samworth have produced notable projects, including the collaboration "The Etiquette Of Dying”; a feature length piece that guides the viewer through the process of end of life; as well as 4-part series of a psychedelic pill-cam-inspired video series with Vancouver trio ‘Beatings Are In the Body’. Melissa's current focus is to continue developing story through picture and creating cinematic motion art on a diy budget.

https://linktr.ee/melissahubert

https://www.instagram.com/artbymelhub/

Antiquiety Thief

https://www.instagram.com/antiquity.thief

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We acknowledge that our work takes place in Vancouver on traditional and unceded Indigenous land belonging to the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish),Stó:lō and səlil̓wətaʔɬ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. We are grateful for this place.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

The Hargrove, 150 East 3rd Avenue, Vancouver, Canada