By: Chloe Price

Photo courtesy of: Chris Gatchalian

*Permission to reprint granted by the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society

The relationship between politics and art has been a constant subject of debate, and we live in a time when this conversation is more relevant than ever before. With the birth of social media we have seen the advent of callout-culture, and a new method of holding individuals accountable for their words and actions. Additionally, the political polarization of Western society is peaking at the current moment, and the Internet serves as a limitless digital soapbox for people to present and argue about their vastly differing perspectives and outlooks on life. These factors have helped create a culture in which few works of art are exempt from being viewed through a political lens. When we sit down to speak, local writer Chris Gatchalian explains to me his own evolving view on the matter. “When I was younger, I used to think of art and literature as being these universal things that were apolitical, but I don’t subscribe to that belief anymore. I still believe art is transcendent, and I don’t want to get too spiritual, but it is connected to the Divine, I think, but I don’t think that precludes it from being political. To ignore politics is to ignore what’s going on in the world, and I don’t think art should ignore what’s going on in the world.” Gatchalian has just finished his residency at Vancouver’s Historic Joy Kogawa House. The building was once inhabited by renowned Canadian writer Joy Kogawa, who is perhaps best known for her book Obasan, which centered on the government’s persecution and internment of the Japanese in Canada during the Second World War. Kogawa and her family were sent to an internment camp in 1942, and today her childhood home serves as a place for writers to live and work, as well as a reminder of the racial discrimination that Japanese-Canadians underwent.

Being both queer and a person of color, Gatchalian is no stranger to discrimination, and his work often touches on such themes. An excellent example is the project he was working on during his residency at the Historical Joy Kogawa house: a non-fiction book titled Double Melancholy that Chris describes as “a hybrid of cultural criticism and memoir” about the works of art that have impacted him and provided him a syllabus for living. Double Melancholy is being published by Arsenal Pulp Press and will be coming out in spring of 2019. “What the book explores is the fact that all these works of art are Western and white-centered,” says Gatchalian “And so the edification I found from those works of art, what was happening simultaneously was an erasure of me as a Filipino queer person.” Intrigued by the unique term ‘syllabus for living’, I press Chris for details. He explains it as having started when he was growing up gay in a hetero-normative society: “I never saw myself or my romantic aspirations reflected in my real life, so I had to resort to cultural artefacts to model my behaviour and acquire paradigms of loving and romance.” So he turned to literature, music and theatre—but even when these art works were queer, they were all white. “I never saw my whole self reflected.” Chris says, “Growing up, I think I pretty much thought of myself as white.” When I ask him whether or not he now writes with this concept in mind, being aware of the importance of representation and the impact that his work has on younger generations, he replies that it has definitely become something he takes into account in his practice. Chris also has designs on writing another non-fiction book in the future, about representations of the Filipino. “I’m very interested in that specific experience of being a Filipino because the exclusively Filipino spaces are much more joyful; because we’re united, we have positive cultural things to celebrate. There are representations of Filipinos that have been quite damaging and have really affected the way that we move and interact with the world. I have a couple of writing projects that are going to tackle that.”

When Chris wasn’t writing Double Melancholy, he also held workshops as part of his residency, with one in December on writing about identity. “We talked about the idea of whether writing about specific identities, namely one’s own, is limiting. Which brought up issues having to do with how we think about writing. Do we think of writing and literature as acts that are universal and transcendent, or is it about telling a story as specifically and precisely as possible?” Chris views the discussion on writing about an experience and identity that isn’t your own as a “burning topic”, to which “there’s no easy answer.” Chris believes that there is a middle ground between only writing autobiographies and creating works of appropriation. He says, “My personal opinion is I think a writer’s freedom of expression, and their freedom to write whatever they want, I believe that’s sacrosanct—that said, I think if you are going to write about a community that’s not your own or an experience that you have not experienced, then you should ensure that you do the necessary research and that you exercise the proper protocols regarding permissions from people, and ensure that those people are compensated.”

Prior to his recent residency, Chris was the Artistic Producer at Frank Theatre, a position from which he stepped down in December, though he remains an Associate Artist with the company. Chris operates in an array of creative mediums, writing poetry drama, non-fiction and fiction, but is probably most recognized for his work as a playwright. “I’ve always loved theatre. I think people forget that theatre kind of birthed Western literature. I’ve loved the experience of stories acted out in a live concrete way on stage.” Chris has been writing drama for about twenty years now, and his plays have appeared on stages across the nation, and he has an excellent insight into the state of theatre. I ask Chris is he has noticed any trends or gradual shifts in Canadian theatre culture over the span of his career. “For a long time, English-Canadian theatre lagged behind French-Canadian theatre; Quebec theatre is very advanced whereas English-Canadian theatre was very mired in realism, kitchen-sink conventional drama, but it has progressed in a very short period of time. There’s really a lot of interesting things happening—especially here, the West Coast.” I’m curious about Chris’ observations on how the rise of technology and the Internet have affected the world of plays, and he says that when he’s looking at scripts from a workshop, people now tend to try and write plays in exactly the same way that they would film or television scripts. “These are beginner playwrights, mind you,” Chris adds. He notes also that on the positive side, theatre has become more multi-disciplinary due to film, often incorporating digital visual imagery in a meaningful way. He also notes the silver lining of theatre audience now having lower numbers, saying that because it’s such a non-commercial art form, there is a lot of artistic freedom to explore, since you’re not confined by commercial expectations. And in that exploration, there is the potential for progress and positive change.

Chris says he believes in the political change that art can make. “The effect of art is different from the effect a piece of political legislation has but I think it’s just as important, because art affects the units that make up society—the individuals. Art can affect concrete change. I’ve seen it time and time again.” Keep an eye out for Chris’ book Double Melancholy, which will be available come next Spring from local publisher Arsenal Pulp Press, and is sure to be an enlightening read.