WESTERN FRONT – Dear Friends &: Jordan Abel, Phanuel Antwi, Tiziana La Melia

A bright pink monotype print with loopy red and white markings and scratches and that resemble cursive handwriting.

Western Front and The Capilano Review are pleased to present the next event in our monthly reading series Dear Friends &. Join us for an evening of poetry by Phanuel Antwi, Tiziana La Melia, and 2024 writer-in-residence Jordan Abel. The evening will be hosted by Jacquelyn Zong-Li Ross and Kiel Torres.

About the Artists

Jordan Abel is a queer Nisga’a writer from Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of the award-winning poetry collections The Place of Scraps (2013), Un/inhabited (2014), Injun (2017), and NISHGA (2022), and the novel Empty Spaces (2023). Abel completed a PhD at Simon Fraser University in 2019, and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta where he teaches Indigenous Literatures, Research-Creation, and Creative Writing.

Gazing to the right, Jordan Abel stands on a path in a forest with his hands in the pockets of his black denim jacket.

Phanuel Antwi is an artist, curator, and organizer concerned with race, poetics, movements, intimacy and struggle. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literatures at UBC. In 2022 he was named Canada Research Chair in Black Arts and Epistemologies. He is the author of On Cuddling: Loved to Death in the Racial Embrace (2024).

Phanuel Antwi sits on a black chair with one leg crossed over the other, speaking into a microphone. His expression appears thoughtful as he gestures with his free hand while addressing the audience. Behind him is a projected abstract pattern of repeated vertical shapes in warm tones.

Tiziana La Melia is a painter, poet, and collaborator based on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Sel̓íl̓witulh territories (Vancouver, Canada). In her writing and art practice, La Melia gleans the detritus of the everyday and transmutes it into material textures, fantasy, and iterative shapes and symbols, which move through layers of diasporic time. She is the author of lettuce lettuce please go bad (2024), The Eyelash and the Monochrome (2018) and Oral Like Cloaks, Dialect (2015/2018).

Smiling, Tiziana La Melia kneels on the floor of a rustic, white-painted room with wooden walls. A monitor showing an image child's face is mounted on the wall behind her. To her left hangs a sculpture consisting of a birdcage adorned with long strips of ribbon.

Accessibility

The Grand Luxe Hall is located on the second floor of Western Front, which is accessed by a flight of 26 stairs. While plans for a full building upgrade to facilitate access for wheelchair and scooter users are still underway, events in the Grand Luxe Hall are made available virtually via high-quality livestream (see link above). Further details about accessibility at Western Front can be found here.

Acknowledgements

Produced in partnership with The Capilano Review with support from the BC Arts Council.

Jonathan Alfaro, Sleeping Dictionary, from the series Daylight Lover (2024). Courtesy of the artist.

Jonathan Alfaro, Sleeping Dictionary, from the series Daylight Lover (2024). Courtesy of the artist.
Portrait of Jordan Abel. Photo by Tenille Campbell.

Portrait of Jordan Abel. Photo by Tenille Campbell.
Portrait of Phanuel Antwi. Photo by Wendy Coleman.

Portrait of Phanuel Antwi. Photo by Wendy Coleman.
Portrait of Tiziana La Melia. Photo by Kelsey Conley.

Portrait of Tiziana La Melia. Photo by Kelsey Conley.

Western Front is a non-profit
artist-run centre in Vancouver.

We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.