The LIVE Biennial of Performance Art was founded and produced by grunt gallery for its first four iterations 1999 - 2005. Initially conceived of and organized by Brice Canyon and Glenn Alteen, LIVE sought to highlight the well established but often underground tradition of performance art in Vancouver, provide a platform for new and experimental work, and to celebrate and elevate performance as an art form. grunt gallery partnered with dozens of artists, galleries, and venues to present six weeks of performance, discursive events, and other programming to Vancouver audiences. Though no longer produced by grunt gallery, the LIVE Biennial of Performance Art continues to this day and presented its 10th festival in 2019.
The digitized collections contained within include materials from grunt gallery's archive, thanks to the documentation work of Merle Addison, Mike MacDonald, Joe Sarahan, Elaine Moyah, Paul Wong, and others. This collection is dedicated to the memory of Brice Canyon (1960 - 2019) who was instrumental in the early arrangement and development of the archive as a rich and accessible resource for researchers and fans of contemporary art in Vancouver. This project is generously supported by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre's BC History Digitization Program. Video digitization by Vtape. Special thanks to Jessica Fletcher for her immeasurable contributions to this project. For research inquiries, content concerns, or other questions please contact Dan Pon, grunt gallery Archives Manager, dan[at]grunt.ca
