Justin Ramsey

The Lady is a Tramp: Klasika by Barbara Adler

The Lady is a Tramp: Klasika by Barbara Adler

Words by Justin Ramsey Photos by Paula Viitanen Long before his rise to prominence as one of the leading thinkers of the Frankfurt School, Herbert Marcuse was a something of a young aesthete. His doctoral dissertation examined the Künstlerroman, a literary genre that situates the artist in a struggle against her prosaic, everyday milieu. Arguing […]

 Special Contributor

High Hair Economics: An Interview with Klasika’s Ashley Aron

High Hair Economics: An Interview with Klasika’s Ashley Aron

Words by Peter Dickinson, Ashley Aron, Barbara Adler   In the summer of 2015 I went to the Czech Republic to learn about the unique sub-culture of Czech tramping. I’ve told a lot of stories about my attempts to adapt elements of Czech tramping to a Canadian context; many of these efforts have been detailed […]

 Special Contributor

Field Camp: An Imagined Wilderness

Field Camp: An Imagined Wilderness

Words by Nola Semczyszyn Photos by Lukas Engelhardt and Megan Stewart On August 22, a motley group of people gathered at East Vancouver’s Pandora Park for Field Camp — a collaborative participatory art event and neighbourhood celebration organized by Barbara Adler and Dance Troupe Practice as part of DTP’s Field House Residency. The event drew […]

 Brit Bachmann

Makeshift Cowboy Meets Improvised Beach

Makeshift Cowboy Meets Improvised Beach

Klasika goes on an urban vandr

Written by Barbara Adler Brit Bachmann photos Brendan Yandt soundscape It feels like it happened a long time ago. A group of friends met in my office at SFU’s School for the Contemporary Arts, where I am currently a graduate student. We listened to field recordings I made last summer in the Czech Republic as […]

 Barbara Adler

Hey you, it’s me

Hey you, it’s me

 Story and audio recording by Barbara Adler. Photographs by Jirka Matousek and Míša. After posting “My Cowbojsky Boty,” Barbara Adler returned to Czech Republic, cast as a character in Czech Country, a documentary about Czech tramping which is also the subject of her year-long, multidisciplinary art project Klasika. Her return to Canada’s west coast brings […]

 Barbara Adler

My Cowbojsky Boty

My Cowbojsky Boty

Or, "How to Own it When You Don't Own It."

Writing by Barbara Adler Illustrations by Brit Bachmann Photography by Barbara Adler and Ash Tanasiychuk Videos by Ash Tanasiychuk “A cowboy without a horse just wants to get to where they’re going.” This summer, I picked up that piece of cowboy philosophy by wandering – horseless — through the Czech countryside in a pair of […]