2021. 9 Exhibitions / 2 galleries
UNREALITY NOW / University of Alberta Senior Printmaking Class
May 8 - Jun 5
The exhibition features both print and digital projects created by students in the past months. Print works by the students will be displayed in the gallery windows starting May 8th to June 5th, 2021
Artists: Ambar Azcorra, Andrea Larsen, Ariana Ozga-Reinecke, Audrey Gamponia, Elise Futoransky, Gabrielle Keiran, Gina Pasaran Ugarte, Jennifer Fernando, Jinying Zhu, Kamei Lim, Kayla Bleoo, Kev Liang, Sarah Sceviour, Sydney Rusnak
over and over, again and again / Andrew Testa
Jun 12 -Jul 17
In this body of work, I pose and begin to respond to the question: what does a mutual and nurturing conversation with the other-than-human look like and what would the ethics of such an endeavour be? In my investigations, I perform gestures that bring me to a space parallel to the other-than-human, a space I attempt not to impose upon but rather sit beside: to watch, to listen and to wait with. In such acts I hope to allow the opportunity for the other-than-human to perform its own language—a language that isn’t an attempted translation into the familiar words and voices I may know, but rather one that exists in its ambiguity and acknowledged for its difference and distance.
My prints, words, performative processes, and books work through gestures of slowness in hopes of becoming acquainted and courteous with my surroundings. By attempting to create two-way conversations with the other-than-human things I experience in my daily rituals of walking (while dragging plates) and pausing (while dressing in DIY camo to wait, look, and listen), I work to collaborate and participate with the other-than-human things I engage with
Thirst Trap / Haylee Fortin
Jun 12 - Jul 17
“Thirst Trap is a physical representation of the online hunting forum I have followed since 2018. Though unintentional, the forum has allowed me to engage with aspects of rural prairie culture alien to me and provided space to understand my connection to where I am from – however tenuous that may be.
Two years ago while searching for images relevant to my painting practice, I came across the Alberta Hunting Addicts forum on facebook. I had assumed when joining this online community that I would use it solely as an image source but found myself more and more interested in what it means to hunt, and the interactions between members of the forum.
The prairies are my home, but at times I experience a disconnect with prairie culture. Despite coming from a rural farming family, my politically left-leaning, city-slickin’ ways often leave me feeling like an imposter. As I collected images I noticed that many of the members had an interest in conservation, a willingness to provide support to other members and a respect for nature.
The Wish Machine / Ruthann Godollei
Jul 24 - Aug 21
The Wish Machine is a display of collective dreams- in light of a year or more of frustrated ambitions, we envision what needs to change, our hopes and desires and what, if we put our minds and hands to it, we might achieve.
Sometimes naming what we want is the first step to making it happen. Saying it out loud, spelling it out, telling others, inscribes our desire for change. Our aspirations- political, social, spiritual, personal, physical, take form as we share them and get to work, despite earthly impediments.
Kitchen Codex / Patrick Cruz / Curation by Christina Battle
Aug 28 - Oct 2
Kitchen Codex is a site-dependent ongoing food-based project, collaborative social sculpture, and communal performance. Since 2015, Kitchen Codex has manifested, shared experiences, and collected recipes in various locations and contexts such as Guelph, Ontario, Berlin Germany, Sudbury, Ontario, Mexico City, Mexico, Malmö, Sweden, Vancouver, British Columbia, and most recently online via e-mail exchanges. Participants from the local community were asked to donate a personal recipe in any language in exchange for a Filipino meal which the artist normally prepares and serves. lately, the project had to shift to purchased Filipino snacks due to the limitations of gathering.
Using food as a vessel for sharing knowledge and as a means to view and reflect on personal and collective histories, the compiled recipes will later be printed into a textile cookbook. Co-authored by the local community, Kitchen Codex aims to bridge the ritual of communal eating and sharing cultural awareness through the digestion of history and the joint solidarity of cultural appreciation during times of socio-political divisiveness.
Carving Room / Andrew Thorne
Aug 28 - Oct 2
Carving Room, is a print-based installation exploring Canada’s relationship to media and place. This is a project inspired by plywood, its abundance throughout the urban landscape, and its relationship with housing, development and resource extraction. The large-scale, woodcut project has been produced at SNAP, as part of the Emerging Artist in Residence program. This work has been supported by Arts Nova Scotia.
Carving Room was made to consider what spaces say, and what materials we use to construct them, physically and otherwise. Carving Room invites the public into a constructed place to reflect on our own spaces and their functions. Carving Room will call into question the language perpetuated by our media, and what devices it uses to censor and guide public interests.
Exit Strategies / Sylvan Hamburger
Aug 28 - Oct 2
Exit Strategies features the printed impressions of ten doors salvaged from the sites of demolished homes in 2021. The doors are the debris of East Vancouver’s gentrification, its exaggerated displacement and reconstruction. In salvaging, I intended to witness my community’s transformation; in witnessing, I felt a desire to flee.
Responding to the upheaval of land, culture and community, Exit Strategies became an endeavor to visualize my fantasies of escape. I took the doors to the longstanding rehearsal studio of my father’s local theatre company, unused since the start of the pandemic. Amongst the sets and costumes, I imagined and cut passageways through the doors’ worn, flat surfaces. Later, in the months before a rent hike and subsequent eviction, I inked and hand-pressed these doors onto found bedsheets. Through the process of cutting and relief printing by hand, my intention began to shift: the impulse to flee became a renewed desire to attend. As the room filled with theatrical departures, Exit Strategies became an exploration of colourful transformation—revealing new thresholds within architecture slated for destruction.
At a Time: Tender And Tense / Agata Garbowska / Luke Johnson / Riaz Mehmood / Sergio Serrano / Brianna Tosswill
Oct 23 - Nov 20
At a Time: Tender And Tense brings together new works by 5 local (Edmonton) artists: Agata Garbowska, Luke Johnson, Riaz Mehmood, Sergio Serrano, and Brianna Tosswill. Each artist has participated in a SNAP residency program over the past 2 years, and while their practices and projects range widely, they share in the struggle and triumph of creating works during periods of social and physical isolation, constantly shifting constraints on access and studio activity, and a time of prolonged distance from community and from each other. While the challenges of the past two years aren’t overtly addressed in these works – themes of time passing and nods to historical and contemporary change captured through print and technological media landscapes are evident throughout.
In thinking through the distance of this time, throughout the four week duration of the exhibition Artists will respond to each other’s work through writing – which will be made available in the gallery in print and online for the duration of the exhibition.
Emerging Artists in Residence – Winter Window Showcase / Taryn Walker / Nicholas Hertz / Kev Liang
Dec 22, 21 - Jan 22, 22