The Space Between Us

Into roughly the 8th week(??) of isolation (time has become incredibly fluid for me), and as the days pass, I think increasingly about what will be in the “time after.” Everyone is in such a rush to “get back to normal,” to reopen businesses and relax some of the protocols that have kept many of us safe and healthy – if not employed. I do absolutely sympathize with those who want to re-open their businesses, who are desperate to earn an income to support themselves and their families. It’s at least as frightening to have the economic rug pulled suddenly out from under you as it is to come face to face with a pandemic. This is about survival, on so many levels.

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https://www.carfac.ca/news/2020/03/30/a-notice-to-our-members-and-our-community-regarding-covid-19/

BUT. I am going to articulate  massively unpopular opinion.

I DO NOT WANT to get back to “normal life.” Not soon, and if I am honest, not ever.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about how ‘normal life’ breaks people and communities through its enactment of privilege, how many people are silenced in so many ways, how at its root this is all about the trade of labour and creativity to enrich the few on the backs of many – and at the expense of the environment and all other beings. How I desperately, urgently, passionately want it all to CHANGE for the better on the other side of this. How afraid I am that it won’t. And how I feel increasingly paralyzed by the prospect of a ‘return to before.’

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This is true for me in relation to the broader culture in which I live, and for the sector in which I work. This is a moment in which we could – and should – recognize that not only will the ‘new normal’ be with us for a long time (2 metres for the win!), but the ‘old normal’ is something that we should neither wish for nor return to. It also may be moot – because the ‘old normal’ may not exist for much longer, regardless of what some (or most) people desire.

“Normal” or “business as usual” has been exposed with utter clarity by the pandemic:  the glaring gaps in care, the enormous disparities that are actively cultivated and maintained by the systems in which we live and work. How many people have no choice but to risk their health and that of their loved ones & work in this time, in order to survive; how the most vulnerable of us have even fewer options to remain safe and healthy.

How many of us have seen our entire sector shut down, cancelled, income evaporated, in already tenuous livelihoods.

So this is a point in which we can CHOOSE what kind of world we want to live in moving forward. And we need to ask these questions of ourselves – NOW – while we have the time and opportunity to do so.

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What are you prepared to do to create a more equitable culture and community as we come out of this? How can we work together to make that happen?

What aspects of ‘normal life’ are you happy to see gone?

I leave you with these questions – and encourage your replies … and also with an excellent essay by Lou Sheppard; they articulate far more eloquently than I some of the things that have been worrying me about what comes next.

Take Care of Each Other.

Macromareal (redux) – some images

After a whirlwind – and lovely – trip to Vancouver to install Macromareal(redux) at ECUAD, Scott and I are back in Edmonton and digging into all the other work we have to do.

Part of that for me has been editing the first batch of documentation from this exhibition, so I can share it with you.

So – without further hoopla:

macromareal redux walk thru from Sydney Lancaster on Vimeo.

And here are a few stills, for good measure!

Branching Out …

A good way to celebrate the Season and start toward a New Year:

I am very happy to announce that a selection of my work  is now available for sale or rental through the Art Gallery of Alberta!

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I think this is a great program from the AGA – renting work is a very cost-effective way to live with art you love, and – if you can’t live without it – a portion of your rental fees for the first 6 months of a rental can go toward a purchase!

And Art Rental and Sales at the AGA showcases the work of more than 150 Alberta artists working in a wide range of media and styles – so it feels especially good to be in such good company, and working with an organization that supports local creators.

A nice start to the week!

Digging in Again … B|T|S

Been a busy busy Autumn – two exhibitions. travel to Lethbridge & Nova Scotia, Board work with CARFAC and Copyright Visual Arts

http://www.carcc.ca/en/mainhttps://www.carfac.cahttps://www.carfacalberta.com

… and now, I get to seriously “dig in” in the studio in the coming months, and revisit Boundary|Time|Surface! Very excited to be looking at this body of work again with fresh eyes, and to being to create new work for it, in anticipation of exhibition in the Fall of 2019 at the Art Gallery of St Albert.

I was also surfing through the EGU website today – the call for new abstracts for 2019 just hit my inbox.

This prompted the surf, and a bit of a walk on memory lane: John and I presented on Boundary|Time|Surface at the European Geosciences Union in Vienna a few years ago, and it was a wonderful experience.

In browsing the EGU site, I also came across this – a lovely blog post about the session convenor’s response to our project. It brought back the very lively discussions we had with so many people at our poster – about scientific discourse, about place and memory, about the ways in which human definitions and descriptions of things and places  can create (and erase!!) different kinds of understanding. Different ways of seeing.

Looking forward to investigating this gloriously complicated place and all my ideas about it.

Off to the studio!

 

Slippages – Score and Performance

UBC Symphony Orchestra performs Deborah Carruthers’ “slippages” from UBC School of Music on Vimeo.

Here’s a video of the performance of Slippages, edited by Jonathan Girard to show the relationship between the Graphic Score written by Deborah Carruthers & the performance the audience heard.

It was great to be involved in this project; my thanks to Deborah, Jonathan, and John William for being such great collaborators, and for welcoming me in to this project!

Enjoy.

Macromareal at University of Lethbridge

Happy to say that I have been busy sorting and packing work, and helping to write a presentation for the last while …

Scott Smallwood and I will be presenting a talk and our collaborative work Macromareal: a rising tide lifts all boats at Crossing Boundaries/IAST 2018 symposium, October 25 – 27th!

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If you would like more background on this project, see the blog posts here>, here>, here>, and here> – and the project page HERE>

It’s going to be a really interesting few days, and I am looking forward to meeting the other participants and talking with them about discipline-bridging work. I’ve long held the belief that the ‘divide’ between art & science as disciplines is false and limiting – which is not to say that there aren’t real challenges to be faced when working this way.

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But there are so many rich opportunities to be had for artists to stretch themselves and learn to ‘speak science’ a bit better, and pay attention to the precision in research & practice in that discipline  – just as there are for scientists to learn how to ‘speak art’ a bit better and open up the potential for co-creation, and approaching their work with fresh eyes (and ears!)

 

Archived Land – Terrain Archivé

I am very happy to say that I will be presenting some brand-new work in a group show coming up very soon!

Details below – I look forward to seeing anyone in the area who cam make it to the Opening Reception.

Exhibition hours after the Opening are listed in the invitation, or by appointment.


Exhibit image (altered): Provincial Archives of Alberta #GR1983.0421

Some information about the exhibition:

ARCHIVED LAND : TERRAIN ARCHIVÉ   at Jackson Power Gallery, Edmonton September 15 to 29

2ndfl, 9744 60 Ave, Edmonton, AB

Opening reception 7pm, September 14, 2018

Exhibit hours: Noon to 5pm

Saturdays and Sundays, September 15 to 29

Or by appointment: 780-499-7635

 

Jackson Power Gallery presents Archived Land : Terrain Archivé, the final exhibit before the gallery closes its doors.

Land holds memory: layered, fragmented, buried, or strongly etched.  It represents identity and connection to our own history and to those who came before us; a narrative landscape that intersects human experience and the natural world.

The gallery’s layout of separate but interconnected rooms forms an environment for individual artist’s interpretation of the theme, providing the visitor with the perception of movement through time and place.

Exhibiting artists:

BELLE//MONDO

Une initiative par collaborateurs/a collaborative initiative by:

Patrick Arès-Pilon & Conor McNally

BELLE//MONDO vous invite à rentrer dans un assemblage de photographie tirée de vrai pellicule diapo Ektachrome datant de 1997.  Cette oeuvre place un regard sur les environnements naturels et bâtis captée sur le territoire du traité numéro 6 incluant à Edmonton, Spruce Grove et La Sapinière en 2018.

BELLE//MONDO welcomes you to enter an immersive photography installation using vintage 35mm Ektachrome slide film (frozen since 1997). This collaborative work features layered sights of natural and built environments captured on Treaty 6 land in and around Edmonton, Spruce Grove & La Sapinière in 2018.

 

Paddy Lamb

Paddy considers himself to be a Canadian, Irish, Ulster Scots, Quaker, Huguenot, Celtic, Proto-Indo-European citizen of the world. His painting, drawing, and installation work acknowledges the role of landscape as a repository for our history, culture and collective memory, exploring the imprint of society on nature and how we form deep and lasting attachments to the land. His work is also a form of self-examination – a search for alternatives that continue to define his ‘sense of place’.

 

Sydney Lancaster

Sydney’s multidisciplinary practice explores the complicated position the individual inhabits in relation to ideas of place, land & ownership, and the ways in which both people and spaces are ‘written upon’ by larger social-political-cultural narratives over time. She is interested in the realities exposed by branches that only bend so far and how newer growth offers much more flexibility, but less strength for supporting weight.

Ultimately, her work is about how we understand and make sense of the land and the space between us.

 

Marlena Wyman

As a long-time archivist and now Edmonton’s Historian Laureate, Marlena Wyman’s art practice is informed by history, and her rural Alberta upbringing provides her with a deep connection to land.

We interpret our memories and identities in part through traces of past lives, whether of our ancestors or others. A haunting photograph or a handwritten passage in the diary or a letter of a long dead stranger can create a profound personal connection.

Drawing Lesson

I am not usually one to share ‘inspirational’ talks or pithy quotes. To be honest, most of that kind of thing leaves me flat – sorry if that seems cynical or jaded, but there’s a tendency toward the superficial ‘instafix’ in this culture that is served by this material.

However – I have also been thinking a great deal about the power of art & creativity to open doors to new ways of thinking and being. Especially pertinent to my mind, given the propensity toward tribalism and divisive language and action in the world today.

And then I came across this:

This little talk  by Graham Shaw is all about breaking down patterns of thinking – about understanding better the limitations we impose upon ourselves (and others).

It is gentle and fun – and if you are in the tl;dr world – skip to the end if you must – but I do recommend the 15 minutes it takes to view the whole thing.

Good stuff for a Monday.

Be well.

Animated Nature

I have always ben fascinated by flight, and the movement of birds in general. There’s something rather otherworldly about it (to me) for some reason.

One of the things I would truly love to see in this life is a huge murmuration of starlings. I have seen smaller ‘swarms’ of them once or twice, but nothing even close to this:

I don’t actually know if I’d be overwhelmed by being present for something of this scale – perhaps it would be a little terrifying, actually (cue the Hitchcock moment!) … but I’d love to see it in person nonetheless.

Murmurations, indeed.

For more of this, go to Jan via IJken’s website (he’s got some really amazing work!)