Suggested admission: $15, sliding scale. Nobody turned away.
Experience the magic of weather in 4D sound.
These events are an opportunity for artist Carmen Papalia to share the power of the Weather Warlock with anyone who might benefit from it. The Weather Warlock is a weather-responsive analogue synthesizer created by artist and inventor Quintron that transforms temperature, wind, light/UV index, moisture/rain, and barometric pressure into sound.
Papalia first encountered the instrument in 2015 through Quintron’s Weather for the Blind website and livestream. In 2024, with support from the Canada Council for the Arts, Quintron came to Vancouver to build him his own Weather Warlock. Since then, the instrument has become central to Papalia’s life and pain management routine. Responsive not only to the weather, but also to the player, the instrument creates a sonic environment that is ever-changing, like the weather.
Papalia considers the Weather Warlock a public utility—available to anyone in need of relief, including those experiencing pain, grief, insomnia, or the isolation and alienation that can accompany life in an ableist culture. It is also a beacon for the broader disability community, drawing people into a disability cultural space where they can experience accessibility as a living practice.
As seen in Papalia’s forthcoming feature-length documentary through Knowledge Network, Up in the Clouds, Down in the Valley, directed by Carmen Pollard.
Access includes ASL interpretation, blind-centered audio description and sound description, objects that bring comfort and relief from pain, and snacks and refreshments.
About the artist
Carmen Papalia is a nonvisual social practice artist whose performances, public interventions, and curatorial projects explain aspects of disability culture, such as interdependence, de-medicalization, and creative accessibility. His practice enlivens his 2015 Open Access manifesto—a set of guidelines that approaches accessibility as a temporary, collectively held space. Often emphasizing the possibilities of living on one’s own terms, his work offers a remedy for the complications of cultural ableism.
Papalia’s performances, videos, installations, and curatorial projects have been presented across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, Korea, and Japan. He is the recipient of the 2020 Sobey Art Award.
Venue access notes
The restroom lacks wheelchair turnaround space.
There are no longer steps up into the listening space or down to the restroom.
Image description
Artist Carmen Papalia sits in profile at the Weather Warlock synthesizer in a purple-lit room, with an orange-glowing semicircular window to his right. He has a dark beard and an olive complexion, and wears a light-coloured brimmed hat and a short-sleeved shirt patterned with delicately outlined flowers. His hands reach across the black dials and toggle switches on the vintage-looking wooden console, designed by the instrument’s creator, Quintron. Red, blue, green, and purple wires crawl across the top of the console and loop over its edges, connecting it to Lobe’s sound system. The amber-lit acrylic panel glows from within, warming his face.
Photo: Sarah Race.