Oxygen Art Centre

RESIDENCY Vance Wright Residency: 26 April – 20 May 2023 Open Studio: Saturday, May 6, 2023 + Saturday, May 13, 2023, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM Exhibition: 27 May – 17 June 2023 We are thrilled to welcome Vance Wright as Oxygen Art Centre’s Artist-in-Residence from Wednesday, April 26, 2023, to Saturday, May 20, 2023. Wright is a two-spirit reconnecting member of the Tl’azt’en Nation who was born on the traditional territories of the S’inix’t Nation, colonially known as Nelson, BC. They return to their hometown for a four-week residency to explore decolonialism through beadwork, sculpture, and curatorial practice. An emerging artist and curator, Wright is currently engaged in an undergraduate degree at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Critical & Cultural Practices and Sculpture. During their residency Wright intends to pick up various threads in their practice concerning concepts of trace and portals, and how they relate to curatorial practice. This will be primarily explored through textiles like technical camouflage and beadwork practices, as well as formal engagements with hegemonic exhibition tropes.

During the residency, the public are invited to visit with Wright during two Open Studio events on Saturday, May 6, 2023, and Saturday, May 13, 2023, between 1:00 PM and 3:00 PM. Open Studios provide an informal opportunity to engage with the artist and their practice. Learn more information about adjunct public programs by visiting Oxygen’s website and social media.

Following the residency, Wright will present new and existing works in an exhibition entitled Tracelines, on view from Saturday, May 27, 2023, to Saturday, June 17, 2023. Oxygen Art Centre will be open to the public Wednesdays to Saturdays from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM during the exhibition run. Admission is free or by donation. This program is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council. Call for Volunteers: Gallery Hosts Vance Wright: Tracelines Exhibition: 27 May – 17 June 2023 Oxygen Art Centre is looking for volunteers to host the upcoming exhibition by Vance Wright on view from May 27 to June 17th, Wednesdays to Saturdays from 1:00 – 5:00 PM. Interested volunteers can sign-up for a whole four-hour hosting session or part. Contact info@oxygenartcentre.org to sign-up and for more information.MOREWHORL WORKSHOP [ONLINE]Workshop #2 Friday, April 28, 2023 @ 1:00 – 3:30 PM Zoe Kreye Registration fee: $20; Register via Google Form Zoe Kreye is an interdisciplinary artist whose performance and installation work engages audiences in participatory and embodied happenings. Her focus on motherhood, grief, and the experience of loss in the body are activated through painting, tapestry, and ceramic works, alongside her somatic and bodywork practices. Kreye’s workshop will invite participants to engage in a series of movements to engage with drawing and sculpture through somatic practices.REGISTERABOUT THE ARTISTZoe Kreye creates interdisciplinary art projects that explore transformation, embodiment and collective experience. Recent projects include De Fem (WAAP, Vancouver), Make Our Own Air (SPACE, London), Our Missing Body (Hochparterre Berlin, Western Front, Kamloops Art Gallery), FutureLoss (grunt gallery), Unlearning Practices (Unit Pitt, Goethe Satellite, <rotor> Graz). Working in the realms of sculpture, dance/movement, drawing and somatics, her projects take shape as installations, workshops, rituals and journeys. Materially she works close to the body using clay, cloth, foam and gestural lines. She creates artworks through transcendent experiences, then invites publics and performers into the installations to embody, disrupt and explore the transformative capacity of sensation, narrative and ritual. She holds an MFA in Public Art and Social Practice from the Bauhaus University Weimar and a BFA in Sculpture from Concordia University Montreal. She co-founded the Berlin artist collective Process Institute. She is currently based in Vancouver and teaches studio and Social Practice at Emily Carr University.MOREAUTHOR READING SERIES

10 May 2023 @ 4:00 PM PST (Zoom) Canisia Lubrin Jessica Johns Register via EventBrite Join us for the last event for the Spring 2023 Author Reading Series program featuring Canisia Lubrin and Jessica Johns. Everyone welcome to attend. Admission is free. Learn more on our website.

REGISTERABOUT THE AUTHORS CANISIA LUBRIN is an acclaimed poet, editor and writer. Her writings explore ideas of social justice and the limits and possibilities of art, form, and language. Her books include the story collection, Code Noir (Knopf, 2023). Her first book Voodoo Hypothesis (Wolsak & Wynn, 2017) was named a CBC Best Book. Her second book, The Dyzgraphxst (M & S, 2020) won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry and the overall Literature prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize, and the Derek Walcott Prize. That same year, she was awarded the Canada Council’s Joseph S. Stauffer prize for literary achievement and the Windham-Campbell prize for a body of work. Among other honours, her writing was finalist for the Governor General’s Award, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and Trillium Book Award for Poetry. Anthologies that include her fiction were finalists for the Toronto Book Award and the Shirly Jackson Award. She was twice longlisted for the Journey Prize. Lubrin is a 2022 Civitella Ranieri Fellow and has held writer residences at Queen’s University and the appointed inaugural 2021 Shaftesbury Writer in Residence at Victoria College, University of Toronto, where she has taught creative writing. Lubrin previously taught at the Banff Centre, multiple community and literary organizations, and universities and colleges in Toronto. Her work is widely published and anthologized and has been translated into four languages. In 2021, the Globe & Mail’s named Lubrin Poet of the Year. She is poetry editor at Canadian press McClelland & Stewart. JESSICA JOHNS is a nehiyaw auntie with English-Irish ancestry and is a member of Sucker Creek First Nation in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta. The former managing editor of Room magazine, she co-organizes the Indigenous Brilliance reading series. Johns’s writing has been published in Grain, Glass Buffalo, SAD magazine, Red Rising Magazine and Canadian Art, among others. Her debut poetry chapbook, How Not to Spill, was a co-winner of the bpNichol Chapbook Award, and her short story “Bad Cree,” upon which her novel is based, won the Writers’ Trust of Canada Journey Prize and a silver medal at the National Magazine Awards.REGISTER

FALL SEMESTER

Plan ahead! Oxygen’s Fall 2023 Semester is now open for registration. Continue learning a medium, explore a new one, dream, sing, and gather together, make your own screen printed artist book, and learn to paint! Learn about the classes, instructors, and how to register via our website. Spaces limited. Contact Natasha Smith (Education Coordinator) with questions or registration support.

REGISTERJOINSupport your artist-run centre by becoming an Oxygen Art Centre Member. Oxygen Memberships run from $2 (Senior/Student) to $5 (Single) to $10 (Families) and significantly help our organization. Become a member today! MEMBERSHIP BENEFITSEvents, Tours and Artist TalksVolunteer, Networking and Mentorship ExperienceRegular mailings and newslettersVoting Privileges at Oxygen Art Centre’s AGMAccess to current Exhibition Publications and CataloguesArtist-in-Residence and Exhibition ToursRegister ONLINE or by MAIL Already a Member? Consider making a Donation.REGISTERImages (top to bottom): (1) Promotional image for “Tracelines” Residency + Exhibition, Vance Wright, feat. “Inheritance,” installation by Vance Wright, 2022; (2) Vance Wright, Courtesy the artist, 2022; (3) Promotional image for Call to Volunteers, 2023; (4) Installation view of Zoe Kreye, Uncommon Language exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery, October 17, 2020 to April 5, 2021; (5) Zoe Kreye; (6) OAC ARS poster, 2023; (7) Canisia Lubrin (L), Jessica Johns (R); (8) OAC 2023 Spring and Fall Semester promo image, 2023; (9) “Become a Member” text overlaid on an image documenting an installation in progress at Oxygen Art Centre, 2015;

Oxygen Art Centre info@oxygenartcentre.org #3- 320 Vernon St. (alley entrance) Nelson, B.C. V1L 4E4 Canada 250-551-6329 Facility access information Hours of Operation: Wednesdays – Saturdays, 1:00 – 5:00pm (during exhibition run) Admission by donation Oxygen Art Centre acknowledges with gratitude that we are located on the tum xula7xw/ traditional territory of the sn̓ʕay̓ckstx/the Sinixt People. As uninvited guests we honour their ongoing presence on this land. We recognize that the Sinixt Arrow Lakes, Sylix, Ktuxana, and Yaqan Nukij Lower Kootenay Band peoples are also connected with this land, as are Métis and many diverse Indigenous persons. We are grateful for the financial support we receive from Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, BC Gaming, Province of BC, Government of Canada, Vancouver Foundation, Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance, Columbia Basin Trust, United Way, Osprey Community Foundation, Nelson Lions Club, and Nelson and District Credit Union. We offer thanks to Elephant Mountain Literary Festival and other key partners including Hall Printing, Speedpro Signs, and Selkirk College for their support. We especially thank all of our volunteers, donors, and members. Oxygen Art Centre is committed to ensuring all exhibitions, programs, and events are accessible to visitors. Our facilities are wheelchair accessible and equipped with an all-genders washroom. Please contact Oxygen if you have any questions or concerns about your visit.

Our mailing address is: Oxygen Art Centre#3-320 Vernon Street, Nelson, British ColumbiaV1L 4E4Canada