Category: Oxygen Art Centre

AUTHORS TIMOTHY TAYLOR AND FLETCHER FITZGIBBON READ AT NELSON, B.C.’s OXYGEN ART CENTRE MARCH 18

 
Reading: Wednesday, March 18, 2020 at 7:30 PM
 
 
Reading: Wednesday, March 18, 2020 at 7:30 PM
Admission by donation
 
Workshop: Thursday, March 19, 2020 at 7:30 PM
$10 at the door
 
Famed Vancouver fiction and nonfiction writer Timothy Taylor, and Slocan Valley author Fletcher FitzGibbon will read from and talk about their writing on Wed., March 18 as the third offering of the 2019-2020 “Home and Away” author reading series at Nelson, B.C.’s Oxygen Art Centre.
The event begins at 7:30 p.m. Oxygen, at 320 Vernon St. (alley entrance), is the city’s only artist-run centre. Admission is free ($5 donation appreciated) and the reading is open to the public.
Taylor will also offer a workshop on life as a writer of fiction and nonfiction on Thursday, March 19 at 7:30 p.m. at Oxygen. Admission to the workshop is $10 at the door.
A short story by Taylor, who currently teaches writing at UBC, won the 2000 Journey Prize. His first novel, Stanley Park (2001), was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and was chosen as the 2004 title for One Book, One Vancouver. The novel was a contender in CBC’s 2007 Canada Reads competition.
His most recent titles are the novel, The Rule of Stephens (2018) and a food memoir, Foodville: Biting Dispatches from a Food-Obsessed City (2014). The Toronto Star said of The Rule of Stephens that “Taylor has composed a tightly-crafted, suspenseful story, and one that smartly plays off the disjunction between the rational world of Stephen Hawking and the ‘lower and darker land’ of Stephen King.”
The National Post called Foodville “a fun take down of our obsession with food and the next new thing. He takes to task those who describe dishes with ridiculous superlatives by simply asking ‘Really?’ Is that restaurant really ‘a national treasure’? Was it really ‘a transcendent food experience?’”
FitzGibbon is perhaps Canada’s only author who is also a practicing Chartered Professional Accountant. He was a prize-winner in Kootenay Mountain Culture magazine’s 2016 fiction contest, co-founded the Nelson Writers’ Salon, and has acted in community theatre and performed as a storyteller to a range of audiences. He describes his writing as aiming “to reconcile his experiences in the fast-paced realm of business and his appreciation and admiration of the natural world.”
Taylor’s workshop on March 19 is entitled “Life Lessons of a Writer: Techniques, Approaches and Stories from the Road.” “The idea,” he said, “is to combine talking about techniques and approaches (like I would in a ‘class’) as well as sharing stories from the road, so to speak (like I would do in a ‘talk’). Instruction combined with entertainment value (hopefully).”
The next event in Oxygen’s series will take place April 8 and feature Vernon fiction writer, poet and Okanagan College educator Hannah Calder, along with the end-of-term reading by Selkirk College creative writing students.
The 2019-2020 author reading series is supported in part by the B.C. Arts Council and the Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance, and co-sponsored by Nelson’s Elephant Mountain Literary Festival.
 
Contact: Julia Prudhomme, Executive Director, Oxygen Art Centre: info@oxygenartcentre.org, 250-352-6322
CUTLINES: Timothy Taylor, Fletcher FitzGibbon
—
 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: JURIED YOUTH ART EXHIBITION AT OXYGEN ART CENTRE *EXTENDED*
If I Can’t Dance To It, It’s Not My Revolution
Schedule of Events
*DEADLINE EXTENDED: 7 MARCH 2020, BY 5:00 PM (PST)*
Response: 15 March 2020
Exhibition: 17 April – 16 May 2020
 
Artists (ages 15-24) are invited to submit visual or media artwork to be considered for a professional juried exhibition at Oxygen Art Centre opening in April 2020.  We invite young artists to select finished work or produce new work that addresses the theme: If I Can’t Dance To It, It’s Not My Revolution. The deadline to submit an application is Saturday, March 7, 2020 by 5 PM.
The juried group exhibition’s title is in part derived from a similar phrase by feminist anarchist and writer, Emma Goldman (1869-1940), and further appropriated by Toronto-based band, DOOMSQUAD on their album, “Let Yourself Be Seen” (2019). If I Can’t Dance To It, It’s Not My Revolution invokes the hope and horror of the contemporary moment with fantastic contradiction that comes with being a young person today. For significant social change to be effective it needs to engage the creative cortex, one that includes both the mind and the heart. It is a reminder that creative people make the best revolutionaries—and perhaps even the best dancers.
Questions to consider might include: As a young Kootenay artist, how do you respond to your environmental, political, and/or historical placements?  How does living in or originating from the Kootenay region influence your art practice and perspective? How do you contend with the contradictions of experience as a young person today through your visual art practice?
This exhibition will pay professional artist fees and is open to young artists working in all mediums: painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, installation, video, sound, crafts, and performance art. We encourage artists to respond to this call in an innovative manner, from the context of their own practice and interests.
Oxygen Art Centre is integral to the regional arts community as a steppingstone for professional artists. Taking part in this exhibition call is a wonderful opportunity to build professional experience at all levels and to share your practice with the wider community.
Submissions will be accepted by mail, email, or hand delivery and should be addressed to the Oxygen Art Centre.
By email: info@oxygenartcentre.org ATTN: Juried Youth Art Show Submission
By mail or drop off:  Oxygen Art Centre, #3A – 320 Vernon Street Nelson B.C.  V1L 4E4
Deadline: Received by 5:00 PM (PST), 7 March 2020
Applicants will be notified of results by 15 March 2020
Submission Guidelines:

• *Curriculum Vitae (maximum two pages)
• *Artist Bio including a statement about your connection to the Kootenays or the exhibition theme (maximum 2 paragraphs)
• *5 to 10 images (jpeg format with a resolution of 72 dpi) of the work intended for exhibition or related/recent work, or equivalent media files. For media or performance work submit direct links or DVD in .avi, .mov, .mpg, .mpeg format. Do not send video files electronically.
• *Image List with image numbers, artist name, title of work, date, medium and dimensions.
• *Artist’s Statement describing the proposed or completed work intended for the exhibition (max 500 words)

FOR   IMMEDIATE   RELEASE: Oxygen presents Curator Jesse Birch from Nanaimo Art Gallery in free, public talk and workshop
 

Context Matters: A Talk and Workshop with Jesse Birch

Public Talk:    Friday, March 13, 2020 at 7:30 PM

Admission by donation

Workshop:      Saturday, March 14, 2020 – Sunday, March 15, 2020

Register online: www.oxygenartcentre.org, spaces limited

Oxygen Art Centre is pleased to welcome and present curator Jesse Birch (Nanaimo Art Gallery) for the Masterclass Series. The public are invited to attend Birch’s talk titled “Context Matters” on Friday, March 13, 2020 at 7:00 PM to learn about Birch’s curatorial practice as it has evolved in the small rural community of Nanaimo, BC.

Birch states, “In my practice as a curator, I am deeply committed to context responsive work, which involves engaging with forgotten or underrecognized sites and histories, empowering those whose stories are often not heard, and celebrating diverse forms of expression.” As such, Birch’s practice is highly collaborative in order to develop thematic exhibitions that are at once engaging in critical discourse and accessibility.

Birch notes that “this approach began [in Nanaimo] with a trilogy of projects relating to the resource industries that the city was built on.” For example, exhibitions such as Black Diamond Dust (2014), Silva/The Mill (2015/16) and Landfall and Departure (2017/18) all respond to the regional context of resource extraction through exhibition-led projects.

These exhibitions “were expansive on and off-site projects that set Nanaimo in international dialogue through contemporary art. These projects evidenced the value of sustained engagement with themes relevant to our community through larger, more diverse, and more engaged audiences.” In addition to the exhibitions, Black Diamond Dust and The Mill, have been published in book form and are distributed internationally through publishing agreement between Nanaimo Art Gallery and Sternberg Press (Berlin).

Learn more about these projects and their local, regional, and international relevance as Oxygen Art Centre hosts a free, public lecture on the evening of Friday, March 13, 2020.  Birch will discuss projects developed at Nanaimo Art Gallery in the past five years and will also highlighting the practices of artists who celebrate the local in their work. Like Nelson, Nanaimo is a small regional hub, and consequently the Nanaimo Art Gallery sees the specificity of the place we live and work as a strength.

Taking place over the weekend following the public lecture, participants are invited to register for a two-day workshop with Jesse Birch from Saturday, March 14 to Sunday, March 15, 2020. Artists, writers, curators, and administrators will benefit from group discussions and individual consultation with Birch. The workshop is intended for those interested in professional development, critical feedback on a project, and/or engagement in contemporary art issues and topics.

Birch notes that “productive dialogue and feedback with artists has long been an important part of my practice as a curator, educator, and writer. I know direct connections with curators from outside one’s region are valuable, and so during the workshop participants will be invited to bring projects they want to develop or would like feedback on.”

Participants will present their work through a scheduled consultation and with Birch will examine the works through productive dialogue. While projects that are rooted in the local are highly encouraged, Birch will be happy to engage any works that participants feel strongly about.

Oxygen Art Centre’s Masterclass Series invites contemporary art professionals to Nelson, BC to share their expertise and work with the local art and culture community. Focusing around the exchange of ideas, Masterclass Series offers an opportunity for professional support, education, and discourse surrounding contemporary art practice.

Masterclass Series presents a free, public talk and workshop over the course of a weekend and is generously supported by Central Kootenay Cultural Alliance.

Curator Biography:

Jesse Birch is Curator of Nanaimo Art Gallery (2014-).  He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts (Photography) from Emily Carr University (2001), and a Masters of Arts degree in Art History (Critical and Curatorial Studies) from the University of British Columbia (2008). In 2007, he was a curatorial fellow at de Appel arts centre in Amsterdam. Birch was Co-Director/Curator of Access Gallery in Vancouver from 2008 to 2010 and Exhibitions Curator at Western Front from 2012-2014. He has also served on the Board of the Or Gallery (Vancouver) and was active with the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres.  Recent curatorial projects include a trilogy of exhibitions that set the resource industries that built the small coastal town of Nanaimo in international dialogue through contemporary art. Birch has published in numerous exhibition catalogues and art magazines including C Magazine, Yishu, and fillip.  In 2013, he received the Art Writing Award from Ontario Association of Art Galleries for his essay on artist Kika Thorne for the Art Gallery of Windsor. From 2009-2013 Birch taught at Emily Carr University in the Critical and Cultural Studies faculty.

Closing Reception & Artist Talk at Oxygen for “Oh, Columbia
 

Exhibition:  8 January – 1 February 2020
Closing Reception & Artist Talk:  Friday, January 31, 7:00 – 9:00 PM
Gallery Hours:  Wednesday – Saturday, 1:00 – 5:00 PM
Admission by donation
Oh, Columbia is the culmination of Hawaii-based artist Mary Babcock’s two-week residency at Oxygen, coupled with the soundscape by local artist and writer, Susan Andrews Grace.
The artists worked in a parallel fashion–Babcock in wax paper and Andrews Grace with sound–to explore water as a symbol of climate change. In particular, the relationship between the historic flooding of Columbia River and the rapid melting of the Greenland’s ice sheet. Together the artists created a cautionary tale that is both sublime and alarming.
Oh, Columbia serves as a lament for what has become a chronic environmental condition of loss and is offered to us by the artists as a cautionary tale to highlight the layers of injustice like the layers of wax paper that echo the ecological, social, and political disasters that we find ourselves participants in.
The exhibition runs until Saturday, February 1, 2020. The gallery will be open Wednesday thru Saturday from 1:00 to 5:00pm during exhibition run for viewing. There will be a Closing Reception & Artist Talk with Susan Andrews Grace on Friday, January 31, 2020 from
7:00-9:00 PM. Everyone welcome to attend.
Special Thank You to Oh, Columbia Exhibition & Residency Coordinator, Deborah Thompson

For more information please visit www.oxygenartcentre.org

Photo cutline: “Oh, Columbia” installation documentation, Photo by Randi Fjeldseth, 2020

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: JURIED YOUTH ART EXHIBITION AT OXYGEN ART CENTRE

If I Can’t Dance To It, It’s Not My Revolution

 
 
Schedule of Events
Submission Deadline: 28 February 2020, by 5:00 PM (PST)
Response: 15 March 2020
Exhibition: 17 April – 16 May 2020
 
Artists (ages 15-24) are invited to submit visual or media artwork to be considered for a professional juried exhibition at Oxygen Art Centre opening in April 2020.  We invite young artists to select finished work or produce new work that addresses the theme: If I Can’t Dance To It, It’s Not My Revolution. The deadline to submit an application is Friday, February 28, 2020.
 
The juried group exhibition’s title is in part derived from a similar phrase by feminist anarchist and writer, Emma Goldman (1869-1940), and further appropriated by Toronto-based band, DOOMSQUAD on their album, “Let Yourself Be Seen” (2019). If I Can’t Dance To It, It’s Not My Revolution invokes the hope and horror of the contemporary moment. For significant social change to be effective it needs to engage the creative cortex, one that includes both the mind and the heart. It is a reminder that creative people make the best revolutionaries—and perhaps even the best dancers.
 
Questions to consider might include: As a young Kootenay artist, how do you respond to your environmental, political, and/or historical placements?  How does living in or originating from the Kootenay region influence your art practice and perspective? How do you contend with the contradictions of experience as a young person today through your visual art practice?
 
This exhibition will pay professional artist fees and is open to young artists working in all mediums: painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, installation, video, sound, crafts, and performance art. We encourage artists to respond to this call in an innovative manner, from the context of their own practice and interests.
 
Oxygen Art Centre is integral to the regional arts community as a steppingstone for professional artists. Taking part in this exhibition call is a wonderful opportunity to build professional experience at all levels and to share your practice with the wider community.
 
Submissions will be accepted by mail, email, or hand delivery and should be addressed to the Oxygen Art Centre.
 
By email: info@oxygenartcentre.org ATTN: Juried Youth Art Show Submission
By mail or drop off:  Oxygen Art Centre, #3A – 320 Vernon Street Nelson B.C.  V1L 4E4
 
Deadline: Received by 5:00 PM (PST), 28 February 2020
Applicants will be notified of results by 15 March 2020 
 
Submission Guidelines:
–       Curriculum Vitae (maximum two pages)
–       Artist Bio including a statement about your connection to the Kootenays or the exhibition theme (maximum 2 paragraphs)
–       5 to 10 images (jpeg format with a resolution of 72 dpi) of the work intended for exhibition or related/recent work, or equivalent media files. For media or performance work submit direct links or DVD in .avi, .mov, .mpg, .mpeg format. Do not send video files electronically.
–       Image List with image numbers, artist name, title of work, date, medium and dimensions.
–       Artist’s Statement describing the proposed or completed work intended for the exhibition (max 500 words)
 
Oxygen Art Centre is an artist-run centre in Nelson, BC. Oxygen provides space and programming for artists and the public to engage in the creation, study, exhibition, and performance of contemporary art. Oxygen Art Centre endeavours to stimulate the creation, exhibition and discussion of contemporary art in all disciplines; to stimulate rural cultural development and professional practices in rural artists; to engage in community development through arts-based projects and to achieve diversity in all programming.
 
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 accessible all-genders washroom. Please contact Oxygen if you have any questions or concerns about your visit.
 
 
The goals of Oxygen Art Centre’s Juried Youth Art exhibition are to:
–       Encourage East and West Kootenay youth to pursue their artistic talents and interests, and those of their peers in a professional and meaningful way that can be celebrated by the community at large
–       Provide professional references and pay professional CARFAC fees to youth selected for the exhibition.
–       Provide opportunities for young artists to receive public support and feedback, and to present their ideas in a professional context through the exhibition and artist talks
–       Provide the opportunity for young artists and the general public to critically reflect on regional identity through a thematic exhibition
–       To stimulate rural cultural development and professional practices for young rural artists
–       Build creative networks throughout the East and West Kootenays by engaging regional arts organizations and institutions
 
Questions about Oxygen Art Centre’s Juried Youth Arts show submission guidelines or eligibility can be directed to: info@oxygenartcentre.org
 
 
Image credit: Juried Youth Art Exhibition Poster, 2020, Oxygen Art Centre
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Oh, Columbia!    Exhibition on view from Wed. Jan. 8 to Sat. Feb. 1, 2020 at Oxygen Art Centre
 

Schedule of Events:
Exhibition: 8 January – 1 February 2020
Closing reception: 31 January 2020, 7:00 – 9:00 PM
Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Saturday, 1:00-5:00 PM
Oxygen Art Centre presents Hawaii-based artist Mary Babcock with local artist and writer Susan Andrews Grace in the exhibition, “Oh, Columbia!” The exhibition is the culmination of their collaborative residency that took place in December 2019.
New exhibition, “Oh, Columbia!” opens at the Oxygen Art Centre. The exhibition is the culmination of American artist Mary Babcock’s two-week residency at Oxygen, coupled with the soundscape by local artist and writer, Susan Andrews Grace. The artists worked in a parallel fashion, Babcock in wax paper and Andrews Grace with sound, to explore water as a symbol of climate change. In particular, the relationship between the historic flooding of Columbia River  and the current rapid melting of the Greenland’s ice sheet. Together the artists created a cautionary tale that is both sublime and alarming.
The exhibition will open on January 8th and run until February 1, 2020. The gallery will be open Wednesday thru Saturday from 1 to 5pm during exhibition run for viewing.
Mary Babcock’s semi-translucent aerial map of the historic town of Vanport, Oregon is the dominant feature of the installation, “Oh, Columbia.”  Suspended from the ceiling, this 14’x 9’ quilt-like piece, with its intricate needle work, hand stitching, collaged architectural shapes, and layering of fused wax paper gives a delicate yet transformative tone to the exhibition.
With this piece, Babcock calls our attention to the tragic decimation of an urban centre that was quickly established to house World War II African American ship builders. The entire town vanished due to massive flooding of the Columbia River in May of 1948. Built on a flood plain, Vanport was never meant to last. In the artist’s statement she notes that this “catastrophic” flooding of Vanport provided “a vivid, if misguided, justification for the further damming of the Columbia River in the name of hydro-control and power. It later helped cement the imperfect marriage between Canada and the US – the Columbia River Treaty – delivering promised power, yet also decimating communities, cultures, and ecosystems and threatening future food and water security.” Race, class, and environmental warfare enmesh to catastrophic, and hauntingly contemporary, scale.
On the floor of the gallery, encompassing the viewer and framing the map of “Vanport,”  Babcock creates a glacial melt, which forms the periphery of Greenland. Again, Babcock’s skilled use of wax paper to create a watery world—here, reminiscent of a frozen one–reminds us that as Greenland’s once massive ice sheet melts it will greatly contribute to rising sea levels around the globe. To add another layer, the artist incorporates sea salt to form neuron-like surface features inspired by the watery forms seen during a walk at the Kokanee Park ponds, as they morphed from glassy ice to slush.
As part of the residency and in response to the historical and political themes presented in Babcock’s work, Nelson-based visual artist and writer Susan Andrews Grace created a soundscape for the exhibition. In this new piece, Andrews Grace considers this work a “found poem.” The artist brings together sounds of similar and dissimilar elements inspired from research about the historic flooding of Vanport and the current political climate of the United States alongside sounds of the moving waters of the Columbia River and the ripping of wax paper.
Andrews Grace’s cleverly layers, like Babcock’s wax paper, a mosaic of sounds into a 20-minute loop that will play during the run of the exhibition. Most compelling is the whispering of children’s voices, both her grandson’s and Babcock’s daughter, as they recite the historic bulletin issued by the United States Government to the people of Vanport just hours before the dykes gave way:
“REMEMBER.
 
DIKES ARE SAFE AT PRESENT.
 
YOU WILL BE WARNED IF NECESSARY.
 
YOU WILL HAVE TIME TO LEAVE.
 
DON’T GET EXCITED.”
 
This combination of audio and visual elements immerses the viewer in a world that is tactile and ephemeral. And in this way, the artists seek to remind us of the catastrophic cause and effects of our avarice lifestyles, political systems, and social hierarchies on this planet that we are dependent upon and collectively share.
“Oh, Columbia” serves as a lament for what has become a chronic environmental condition of loss and is offered to us by the artists as a cautionary tale to highlight the layers of injustice like the layers of wax paper that echo the ecological, social and political disasters that we find ourselves participants in.
The exhibition will be on view from 8 January – 1 February 2020 during hours of operation (Wed-Sat, 1:00-5:00pm). Oxygen will host a Closing Reception and Artist Talk by Susan Andrews Grace on Friday, January 31, 2020 from 7:00-9:00 PM. Everyone welcome to attend.
Artist Bios:
Mary Babcock is a professor of Sculpture and Expanded Practices and Chair of Graduate Program in Studio Art in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Hawaii in Manoa. She holds an MFA from the University of Arizona, BFA from University of Oregon, Ph.D in Psychology from University of Pennsylvania and a BA in Psychology from Cornell University. Her practice weaves together performance, textiles and mixed media into immersive installations. Babcock is interested in the intersection of art, contemplation and social activism. She holds the practice of mending as a central metaphor in her work. She has exhibited extensively in both solo and group shows around the world including France, England, Poland, Japan and Philippines. Her work is in public collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.
Susan Andrews Grace is a writer and visual artist. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Las Vegas and a BA in Philosophy from the University of Saskatchewan. Inanna Publications (Toronto, York University) will release her sixth book of poetry, “Hypatia’s Wake”, in the fall of 2020. She has written reviews and catalogue essays for artists in the Kootenay region. She was one of the founding faculty of Oxygen Art Centre and teaches Creative Writing there. Her visual art practice includes textile installation, mixed media, and sculpture. “Domestic Fetishes”, a solo exhibition, will open at Kootenay Gallery of Art on August 28, 2020. She has received several awards for her writing and visual art including grants from BC Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, and Columbia Kootenay Culture Alliance.