Vines Art Festival gains a fresh perspective with incoming co-artistic director
Working with founder Heather Lamoureux, Manuel Axel Strain aims to make the legacy of the land a major focus of the annual event
(Clockwise from top) Kin Folk, Manuel Axel Strain, and Nova Wolf.
Vines Art Festival takes place August 6 to 16 at seven parks around Vancouver
THEY’RE NOT JUST parks.
The green spaces and beaches of the city have a lot to offer Vancouverites, whether it’s a July-afternoon volleyball match with friends at Spanish Banks or a nature walk with the kids along Stanley Park’s Rawlings Trail. As Manuel Axel Strain, the incoming co-artistic director of Vines Art Society, reminds us, however, these are also spaces where people of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations lived for centuries before Europeans ever set foot on the soil.
Interviewed via Zoom alongside Vines founder Heather Lamoureux, Strain—a 2Spirit artist of Musqueam, Simpcw, and Syilx descent who uses they/them pronouns—tells Stir that this knowledge will guide their approach to programming events like the annual Vines Art Festival, which brings performing acts and art installations to a variety of public spaces throughout the city.
“I think it’s important for me to recognize that a lot of these events take place near old village sites or places where the people who come from there have been around since the dawn of time, basically,” Strain says. “A big part of what I do is thinking of that history and that legacy and how those histories that maybe were forgotten or erased are brought forward, and that we remind people that we’re still here.
“I think that’s a lot of the vision, really thinking about the people of this land and putting them forward while also recognizing that we’ve always welcomed people from other places here,” they continue. “So, making sure that it’s a balanced approach to that too, to continue to do that work and create a welcoming place. I think that’s what I really want to focus on.”
For Lamoureux, bringing in a co-artistic director was a natural next step, considering how much Vines has grown. What she launched back in 2015 as a one-day showcase of artists focused on land, water, and relational justice is now a 10-day event.
Heather Lamoureux.
“It has its own life and its own being, and I’ve been caretaking for it for the past 11 years, and other people come in and support it and grow it and then they receive support and grow from it as well, and we kind of work in four-year cycles,” she says. “We’re almost at year 12, and I identified that I needed support from somebody else to help guide it into the next four-year cycle.”
Lamoureux says Strain, who has previously been involved in Vines Art Festival as both a featured artist and an event host, was a perfect fit.
“Manny has a lot of skills in organizing, specifically around working with the land, being Musqueam and knowing the teachings of where we are,” Lamoureux says. “It’s one thing for our organization to be in relationship with people who have that knowledge, and then it’s another to be led by somebody with that knowledge. If we were to bring in another perspective, it seemed to be most important to me personally that we focus on ensuring that it’s a land-based perspective. Also, Manny has done a lot of work with harm reduction, and that’s another big focus of Vines.”
A graduate of Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Strain draws upon the experiences of their relatives and ancestors in creating works that span the disciplines of performance, painting, sculpture, photography, video, sound, and installation.
Familial and interpersonal bonds were front and centre in Strain’s Polygon Gallery exhibition xʷəlməxʷ child earlier this year. That show included photos of Musqueam landscapes and portraits of Strain’s family and friends, overlaid with imagery inspired by Salish pictographs.
“I’m incredibly excited to start working with Heather. I’ve always admired the work that Vines does, and it’s a wonderful foundation that’s been built to bring in someone like me as a co-director,” Strain tells Stir. “I’m just so grateful to be doing this.”
In addition to an indoor exhibition of photographs by Palestinian-born, Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist Rehab Nazzal at the Vines Den (825 East Hastings), the 2025 edition of Vines Art Festival includes performances at Pandora Park and Oppenheimer Park. At Dude Chilling (Guelph) Park on August 8, Kinfolk Nation, Black Pace, and Kin Balam sing and perform poetry. An evening of drag, storytelling, and music hits Sunset Beach on August 14, with performers Ahsia, Maiden China, and Acacia Gray, while Grandview Park plays host to the event’s Rooted Relations concert on August 15, with Hayley Wallis, Takaiya Blaney, and Nova Wolf. The celebrations build to the big all-day outdoor festival at Trout Lake (John Hendry) Park on August 17, featuring an array of song, dance, and more, as well as artists like Sam Chimes, Siobhan Barker, Ashley Chodat.
The whole thing kicks off on August 6, when Lamoureux and Strain host an opening ceremony called Receiving Direction, conceived in collaboration with Squamish artist and educator Tʼuyʼtʼtanat-Cease Wyss. Performers include Gitxsan-Cree multidisciplinary artist Raven Grenier; poet Hari Alluri, who is of Filipinx and South Asian descent; El Salvador–born DJ Raul Espinoza; and Musqueam-Irish artist May Point-Shaw and their alt-pop music project stelliumPoint.
“The opening is always really special, and it will be special for the two of us together, as that’s an event that we worked on together with Cease, so it feels like it’ll be significant this year, and it’s just a really beautiful place to be near the ocean there,” says Lamoureux. 
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