Art Action Earwig

(Minah Lee and Wryly Andherson)

Home Squat Home: Light and shadow performance installation for audiovisual storytelling + Zines

Received grant in 2020

Art Action Earwig, a multidisciplinary performance collective, is based in Vancouver, unceded Coast Salish territory. On these stolen lands, an artist who was losing her ground in the Canadian immigration system and an artist experiencing sustainability challenges united to make their creative livelihoods possible. Wryly has been practicing puppetry since 2003 and created Moth Orbit Object Theater in 2011. Minah has been exploring multimedia performance since 2007 and co-founded FurryN@vel Performing Arts Collective in 2013. The duo’s collaborative journey, that had begun in early 2018, continues under the name Earwig from 2020. Earwig’s art practices concern both issues in our community and beyond national borders, exploring pressing matters of our time that call for actions.

How has receiving a DTES Small Arts Grant supported your development as an artist?

It provided us immediate resources we needed to realize our ideas and sustain our practice during challenging times. This project development opportunity is bringing us broader connections to share our art works and community practices.

How has DTES Small Arts Grants helped DTES artists?

It helps DTES artists sustain, succeed, support themselves and each other as a community.

How has DTES Small Arts Grants impacted the community?

We believe that it supports the community that deeply understands that art is essential for our collective survival. Despite the fact that times of global crisis can evoke and over-expose privileged paranoia that feeds racism, nationalism, and classism, the community can bind stronger to practice care and remain creative with the resources and relations made possible through the program.