Grand Theft Terra Firm - Gallery Tour close Grand Theft Terra Firma is an unflinching redress of Canada’s colonial narrative. By combining contemporary popular culture with historical source material, artists David Campion and Sandra Shields disrupt the celebratory mythology of nation building and invite us to critically evaluate our own continued and complicated relationship to colonial practices. As the title suggests, the exhibition appropriates the language of digital gaming to reframe the settlement of Canada as a complex heist. Specifically, the title refers to Grand Theft Auto, a series of popular video games considered highly controversial, in part because they require players to commit violent and immoral acts to achieve gaming success. Borrowing from this, the exhibition unfolds as a strategy guide to an imaginary video game based on historical events occurring within S’ólh Téméxw, now more commonly known as British Columbia’s Fraser Valley. Text and image come together to challenge the moral authority of the settler narrative as the artists employ common elements from gaming strategy guides to structure this body of work. Photographic portraits introduce us to the “players.” These characters draw on the archetypes of Canadian history, their fictional backstories describing their roles in the colonial project while simultaneously connecting our national history to the global conquests of the British Empire.
Photographs of artifacts from museum collections are presented as the “power objects” required by the characters for game play, and a series of digitally composed tableaux mimic “screen shots.” These photographic vignettes, achieved in collaboration with Stó:lō community members and actors of settler heritage, evoke the ongoing impacts of past events. As physical interruptions in a primarily photographic exhibition, the photo-studio backdrop, the outhouse, and the desk remind us that the writing of history is often a matter of perspective; how we describe and relate to the story depends on where we are standing. The artists’ use of gaming, satire, and humour provides entry points into difficult knowledge. These strategies encourage us to consider how history can become mythologized in its telling. The exhibition supports discussions around emergent notions of personal awareness and responsibility in the process of decolonization, and emphasizes the potential for art to promote critical discourse in divided societies.
Laura Schneider, exhibition curator Organized and circulated by the Reach Gallery Museum Abbotsford
The Fine Line series marks a shift in Ian Johnston’s artistic practice from a focus on the materiality of a consumer culture to an investigation of the role of doubt in mass culture.
In Check Check, the ubiquity of the self-doubting individual is inextricably linked to a mass culture marked by distrust of the very mass media that gives it shape. Stepping into a space intersected by four large projection screens, the viewer is surrounded on all sides by a looping series of vignettes, screened variously in fragments and in their entirety and accompanied by a four-channel score from composer Don MacDonald. The events and the non-events in Check Check unfold in a sequence that subtly choreographs the audience’s movement within and around the installation.
Johnston’s turn toward video for this piece stemmed from the consideration of an obsessive behaviour familiar to most, namely our highly emotionally charged relationship to screens and digital devices.
In Observer, Observed, Meghan Krauss documents masses of tourists condensing together within each of the panoramic photographs in the exhibition. Compressed together, these people are all equally enthusiastic to be documenting the same picturesque landscapes, regardless of the quality of images taken or on what social platforms they will ultimately be displayed.
In our attempts to document our individual lives and to account for the uniqueness of who we are as individuals, we paradoxically end up doing the same thing as everybody else. Krauss’ analysis of the digital revolution we currently find ourselves in emphasizes the number of visitors that document these iconic places and the euphoria it brings. Observer, Observed reflects these individual attempts to seek out and become part of the recognizable world with technology.
Parrot Lake, 2013 Glenn Clark – Gallery 2 permanent collection
See depictions of place represented in the permanent collection of Gallery 2. From the iconic to the ironic, the way artists depict locality is both deeply personal and more widely contextual. The permanent collection contains a wide range of landscape work; featuring both regionally specific, recognizable landmarks as well as conceptually exploring the larger idea of landscape. From pastel drawings of the Brilliant Dam and prairie landscapes, to abstract relief assemblage and surreal interior views, Iconic Places, Artistic Traces will expand your notion of what constitutes a landscape.
Sanguine Through the Storm takes a hard look at the unsettling times that we live in; acknowledging the breakdown of evidence based discourse and ultimately finding inspiration and hope in human ingenuity. Robyn Moody’s ambitious installation began as an homage to clever repair for leaky pipes – strings of linked buckets drip water from the ceiling, activating lights within and music from a vintage organ. What began as a joyful treatment of space and material results in a cacophony of light and sound that reflects our collective anxiety.
The installation takes advantage of the double height volume of the Reid Gallery, juxtaposing the coffered wooden ceiling details and vintage stained glass clerestory windows with multi-coloured hardware store buckets and utilitarian tubing. The experience of Sanguine Through the Storm manifests the cognitive dissonance surrounding the current global political and ecological climate, eliciting conflicted emotional responses.
Not Extinct presents an immersive audio experience of Sinixt stories. The exhibition invites you to step inside the pages of the book by the same name. Enlarged illustrations and original artworks provide a backdrop for recorded readings while quotes from the book give a contextual background.
The heritage courthouse that houses Gallery 2 is fundamentally a symbol of colonial power whose legacy continues to underpin everything that we do. Within the larger national conversation about Truth and Reconciliation with Indigenous people, it is often difficult to know where to begin. Not Extinct provides a step – through hearing the stories we can begin to acknowledge that there were other people here first. Indigenous stories are an oral tradition; this exhibition is first and foremost an audio experience. As with all stories, there are lessons to be learned – in order for that to happen, the stories must be told – and heard.
Within the large plywood box, you look over a miniature model movie theatre constructed in hyper perspective. A western noir plays on the screen. Put on the headphones, and you become immersed in a classic theatre experience. Recorded using binaural audio, the audio gives you the sensation that you are sitting in an actual movie theatre. Beside you, there is rustling and your companion asks if you’d like popcorn. A multi-layered storyline emerges that combines the content of the film with the whispering of your accomplice. All the elements converge on a surprise ending. As a viewer, you become by turns a voyeur, witness, and participant in the narrative. Ultimately, this piece will displace you and question what constitutes a “real” experience.
In response to the devastating flooding of the Kettle River in 2018, Leta Heiberg has created a multi-medium series of drawings based around aerial footage taken during and immediately after the floods. The works depicts water flowing from mountain snow pack at an impressive speed - gaining volume and speed as it inundated areas previously considered high ground.
Water is its own entity in the work, multi-coloured and dynamic, contrasting surrounding landscapes in shades of black and white. Cheerful rainbow hues reveal as range of contamination washed in the watershed. As colour drains from the landscape, the shift in power becomes clear - control of the environment is impossible in an increasingly erratic world. Flood (re) view is a call to action to process what has happened on a deeper level and re-examine our relationship with a landscape that, while familiar, can become bewilderingly hostile in an instant.
River Relations is an interdisciplinary artistic research project undertaken as a reflection of the damming and development of the Columbia River in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon, and the upcoming renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty. Five artists, two writers, and a geographer began by investigating and comparing historical and contemporary imagery and documentation of the river. Exploring the ideas and story line that emerged, the project contributes to ongoing dialogue around the river through visual art, writing, and public engagement. Through the creative process, the team synthesized personal experiences along the river with material found through research. The exhibition acknowledges the benefits of hydroelectric development while questioning the cultural and ecological costs of basin-wide industrial development. The resulting artwork uses real-world information that resonates metaphorically and allegorically, creating a space for the imagination and contemplation of human/nature relationships.
Post Diluvian is a partnership between Gallery 2 and the Boundary Flood Recovery (BFR) team. During the Boundary Showcase, we invite the community to share experiences and reflections on the flood, adding a layer of community -aggregated content to flood data and documentation. The culture form a larger narrative along with collected watershed information, satellite images, and flood documentation in an interactive map.
Throughout the summer season, visitors to Gallery 2 will be able to navigate the map, scrolling through the narrative focusing on different points depending on personal preference - seeing both the bigger picture and zooming in on the hyper-local.
See the visualization