https://www.comoxvalleyartgallery.com

OPEN ⋮ REALITY Convergent Program

December 7 2022 - April 1 2023

OPEN ⋮ REALITY Convergent Program| 4 February – April 1

The gallery as a hybrid space of reciprocity and a bridging of potentials. OFFERINGS take shape as virtual and face-to-face participation, making, skill-sharing and conversations. ACTIVATIONS intersect and intermingle between art, identity, culture, technology, and society. PROPOSING different ways of knowing is possible through collaborations between artists, technologists, communities and students of diverse ages and abilities – giving time and space to multiple processes. CURIOSITY about art and technology pushes boundaries and makes space for playing with how we imagine and express creatively across disciplines and in the space between. LIVED EXPERIENCES ARE BEAUTIFUL INSTIGATORS. TRANSFORMATION IS ART.

MICHAEL FERNANDES | DON’T KNOW 
Exhibition | Public Open Studio | Installations – Videos | Audio | Implied Drawing | Text
4 FEBRUARY – 1 APRIL 2023
The artist invites you to bring something of yourself.

Multi-media installations and Public Open Studio reconstruct boundaries between gallery and viewer. Fernandes’s multi-media projects create situations that actively solicit participation from the viewer by activating curiosity and creative exploration.
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Michael Fernandes is a Governor General awarded Canadian artist and educator.

THE SOURCE PROJECT | NINA WEDBERG THULIN
Residency | Collaborations 17 JANUARY – 23 FEBRUARY 2023

During this international residency, Nina Wedberg Thulin from Stockholm, Sweden carries all her ‘questions from former works’ while becoming ‘a beginner starting from zero’.“When in Comox – I will be “open to “new ideas, [the] influence from nature and people – or anything that happens during my stay.”

THE SOURCE | PROJECT INSTALLATION
GATHER:PLACE Presentation Space
24 FEBRUARY – 1 APRIL 2023

This installation project follows Nina Wedberg Thulin’s residency and incorporates works from past and the present

INTEGRATING REALITY: BUILDING FROM INSIDE OUT
STREAM Youth Incubator III – Collaborative Skill Building + Installation
5 JANUARY 2022 – 1 APRIL 2023

Inspired by the reality of the art gallery’s evolving architecture, the community of STREAM (Science, Technology, Robotics, Electronics, Arts + Mathematics) Youth built a LEGO and stop-motion installation that offers a nexus for exploring place, identity, and belonging.

TWO HALVES MAKE A WHOLE 
Students in North Island College’s FIN 230/231: Sculpture and Integrated Art Practice
Incubator + Presentation
13 JANUARY – 1 APRIL 2023

This student incubator and presentation project offers participants an opportunity to have practical experience in a gallery environment — installing artwork, preparing art statements, documenting, sharing, and engaging with public audiences.

CVAG spaces are accessible and programs are barrier free (no cost) — DONATIONS are appreciated and contribute to ongoing community interactive programming.

PUBLIC HEALTH CONSIDERATIONS — we ask that visitors choose not to visit if they are experiencing symptoms of colds and flus. Hand sanitation dispensers are available at CVAG. Wearing a mask is at the discretion of the visitor.

OPEN ⋮ REALITY | 7 December – 3 February

Engaging making at the intersection of physical and digital realities.

What was real yesterday is no longer real today, and the future holds new realities. In his book ‘Phenomenology of Perception’, philosopher Marcel Merleau Ponty postulates that perceptions founded on involvement in the world informs an understanding of the transformative nature of reality. His writings emphasize the body as the primary site for knowing the world. The installations, performances, and MakeArt Community Projects + Workshops in the OPEN ⋮ REALITY program expand the nature of perceived reality though the experiences of the sensing body.

REAL REALITY (RR)
Residencies | Collaborations | Site Installations | Performances | Community MakeArt Projects + Workshops
7 DECEMBER 2022 – 28 JANUARY 2023

The embodied + visual art practice of Geneviève Johnson ‘connects audience-participants to themselves, their environment, and others in the present moment while exploring parts of the unknown within.’

Bran Mackie’s material practice weaves a network of perception using ‘the collection and distillation of found objects to examine the ways in which the liminal spaces we inhabit connect and inform our experiences to the material world.’

Sarah Clark’s arts-based research projects translates her practices of – drawing, movement, and contemporary data collection methodologies into “Slow Data” to explore ‘the perceptual disconnect between our inner and outer worlds.’

INTEGRATING REALITY: BUILDING FROM INSIDE OUT
STREAM Youth Incubator III – Collaborative Skill Building + Installation
7 DECEMBER 2022 – 1 APRIL 2023

Inspired by the reality of the art gallery’s evolving architecture, the community of STREAM (Science, Technology, Robotics, Electronics, Arts + Mathematics) Youth built a LEGO and stop-motion installation that offers a nexus for exploring place, identity, and belonging.

THE SOURCE PROJECT | NINA WEDBERG THULIN 
Residency | Collaborations | Accumulating Site Installation17 JANUARY – 1 APRIL 2023

During this international residency, Nina Wedberg Thulin from Stockholm, Sweden carries all her ‘questions from former works’ while becoming ‘a beginner starting from zero’.“When in Comox – I will be “open to “new ideas, [the] influence from nature and people – or anything that happens during my stay.”

WE DON’T KNOW | MICHAEL FERNANDES
Installation – Video | Audio | Implied Drawing | Text 
19 JANUARY – 3 FEBRUARY 2023

This installation work is presented in the Window Media and Plaza spaces 24/7 at CVAG Gallery during the OPEN⋮REALITY programming transitions.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Comox Valley Art Gallery would like to acknowledge that we are located upon the Unceded Traditional Territory of the K’ómoks First Nation. CVAG recognizes the enduring presence of First Nations people on this land.

The gallery is grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with artists, writers, guest curators, community partners, our volunteers, donors + members. CVAG’s convergent programming is made possible through the support of our funders: Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, Government of Canada, Province of BC, City of Courtenay, Town of Comox, Village of Cumberland, Comox Valley Regional District, BC Gaming, Swedish Arts Council | Local Support: School District 71, Innov8 Digital Solutions, Lacasse Construction, Progressive Systems, Phi Architecture, Sherwin Williams, Safe and Sound Window Film, Pacific Audio Works, Shine-Eze Ltd., Muir Engineering Ltd., Izco Technology Solutions, Cumberland Village Works | Community Collaborators: School District 71 Print Shop, ABC Printing + Signs, Curator Abir Boukhari, AllArtNow Lab

 

           

Resource reading:
Merleau Ponty, Marcel. Phenomenology of Perception, Translated by Donald A. Landes, Routledge, 2012.

Image: courtesy of Angela Somerset

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