FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: OXYGEN LAUNCHES VIRTUAL EXHIBITION FEATURING EMERGING ARTISTS AND WRITERS
If I Can’t Dance To It, It’s Not My Revolution Virtual* Group Exhibition
27 June – 15 August 2020 https://virtualexhibition.oxygenartcentre.org/ Oxygen Art Centre is excited to present the virtual* juried youth exhibition, If I Can’t Dance To It, It’s Not My Revolution featuring artwork, artist talks, and more by Josh Franklin, Meadow Kroeger, Spencer Legebokoff, Katherine Victoria MacKay, and Bethany Pardoe. Selected by jurors Marilyn Lee and Ian Johnston, the group exhibition brings together talented young artists working in a variety of mediums–from virtual reality to painting to ceramics to mixed media. The virtual exhibition format has been developed as a response to the COVID-19 global pandemic, while also creating space to celebrate young artists and highlighting the need for cultural engagement during social distancing. If I Can’t Dance To It, It’s Not My Revolution also includes new, commissioned literary works by emerging poets and authors, Nelson Aiken, Spencer Legebokoff, Suki Simington, and Hailey Viers. Website made by Cristian Hernandez, co-founder (with Juli Majer) of DDOOGG, an alt-comics press whose publications emphasize experimentation and abstraction. Cristian will begin his MA in Science and Technology Studies at UBC this Fall. The 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. The exhibition also features Reading List + Resources in support of the anti-racist movements taking place across North America.
Image: Composite Image of Group Exhibition, featuring work by Josh Franklin, Meadow Kroeger, Spencer Legebokoff, Katherine MacKay, Bethany Pardoe, May 2020
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 Revolutioninvokes 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)
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
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 Revolutioninvokes 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
