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Bobbi Kozinuk Seeks Participants for ‘Queer Isolation Stories’ Extended Run

Bobbi SDH
Photo by SD Holman, courtesy Bobbi Kozinuk.
Artist Bobbi Kozinuk on the roof of the Sun Wah Centre -- one of the areas featured in the 'Queer Isolation Stories' project.
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By Perrin Grauer

Posted on September 20, 2021

The media artist and ECU staff member aims to collect stories from the public for broadcast online and at locations around Vancouver.

A public art project by media artist Bobbi Kozinuk will be extended through the fall after a successful summer run with the Queer Arts Festival.

The project, titled Queer Isolation Stories, collects and broadcasts stories created by Bobbi, and submitted by members of the public. Bobbi says the extended run means there is plenty of room for more public submissions.

“I’m really happy with how the project has been received so far; now I’m just hoping to get more people to submit stories,” Bobbi, a studio technician at Emily Carr University, tells me. Those stories, they add, needn’t be about the queer experience — they can be about anything, and in any form.

“When I talk about stories, it doesn’t even have to have a beginning, middle and end. It can be your thoughts about something. It can be your dreams. It can be music. It can be sound art. It can be whatever you like, whatever you feel, whatever they want to hear on the radio. Whatever people want to contribute.”

Bobbi Raf
Photo by Rafael Tsuchida, courtesy Bobbi Kozinuk.

Queer Isolation Stories uses low-power FM radio transmitters around the False Creek seawall area to send stories out on the airwaves. Anyone with an FM radio can listen in, so long as they’re close enough to the source.

“I like to think of it as interactive radio,” Bobbi says. “You have to hold your radio in just the right place to hear the story. If you move, it starts to fade away. There’s an ephemerality to the experience that I think is very exciting.”

For people who don’t have a radio, QR codes located nearby allow people to experience Queer Isolation Stories via mobile device. The codes direct participants to kozinuk.ca, where the growing archive of stories can be explored by theme, by tag or by location.

Bobbi Jer WEB
Photo by Jeremy Isao Speiers, courtesy Bobbi Kozinuk.

Artist Bobbi Kozinuk at one of the places featured in the Queer Isolation Stories project, a City of Vancouver Queer Heritage site in Vancouver's Chinatown neighbourhood.

The project received media coverage over the summer, with mentions in the Georgia Straight, Vancouver Sun and Stir, as well as a radio spot on CBC show BC Today with Michelle Eliot. Meanwhile, the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation joined the Queer Arts Festival in partially sponsoring the first iteration of the work. This warm reception from media and public institutions to artwork about the queer experience has been affirming, Bobbi says.

“In person I’m kind of shy, and I’ve felt that this has been an opportunity to stand and say, ‘I’m queer and I’m proud,’” they tell me. “Twenty years ago, when I was coming out, if I were to say, ‘I’m queer,' the response would be like, ‘OK, see you later.’ There definitely wasn’t the openness that there is now. It’s been empowering that way for me.”

To add your voice to Queer Isolation Stories, visit kozinuk.ca/contribute now. Tune in to all the stories currently in the archive by visiting Bobbi’s project site, or you can visit the physical sites around the city to hear the stories on-location.