Staff

Rafael Zen

Community Arts Coordinator

Rafael Zen is a visual artist, curator, writer, and educator from Brazil, currently living in the land of the Coast Salish peoples – Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam (also called Vancouver in its colonial statement). With over 10 years of experience in the cultural segment, he has worked with art collectives, owned a poetic school and book publisher, organized art fairs, and worked as commissioned artist in research projects. Academically, he holds a Master’s degree in Contemporary Artistic Processes and two graduate certificates in “Contemporary Literature” and “Semiotics”. Rafael’s research and curating practices are based on theories of decolonization, anti-capitalism, theories of systems of knowledge used as systems of oppression, contemporary poetic/political processes, and post-structuralism. In 2019, Rafael moved to Vancouver to study artistic practices, and experience new forms of community, and togetherness. He is author of the books: The Swallow Proposition (Poetry,2012); Oral Body (Short Stories, 2015); To The Grandchildren of the Millennium (Poetry, 2019); and Tropical Fevers (Poetry, 2021). In Vancouver, he is a writer for The Source Vancouver – Forum of Diversity.