An Absolute Movement brings together a body of work by Sonny Assu\, Fiona Bowie\, Matt Browning (recent AHVA MFA graduate)\, Kelly Jazvac\, G enevieve Robertson & Jay White that address the ongoing devastation of clim ate change and environmental crisis.
As the consequences of climate c hange continue to threaten our ways of living and being\, the question of t ime has become a crucial dimension underwriting our modes of understanding and grappling with the realities of ecological crisis. The works gathered b ridge entangled temporalities\, visualizing and materializing the precariou s situation of the present and the uncertain futures that have yet to unfol d.
Sonny Assu’s series of photographs\, Longing(2011)\, navi gate the entwined processes of capitalism and colonialism through a reflect ion on the material detritus of the logging industry in British Columbia\; Fiona Bowie’s Surface(2010-2013) documents the underwater realm of False Creek in the wake of the area’s decimation by industrialization and urbanization\; Matt Browning’s Untitled (2017) are woven silk spir als that index the artist’s labour with the labour of silkworms\, whose bod ies are sacrificed in the pursuit of the luxury material\; Kelly Jazvac’s < em>Plastiglomerates (2013) are post-consumer readymades comprised of s and\, stone\, shell\, and coral mixed with plastic detritus that has washed ashore on Kamilo Beach\, Hawaii\; Genevieve Robertson & Jay White’s pinhol e camera images\, Watchers (2015)\, document the proposed route of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline in an act of counter-surveillanc e to critically engage with the shifting landscapes of extraction.
So nny Assu is an artist and member of the Liǥwildaʼxw of the Kwakwaka’wakw Na tions\, currently based in Campbell River. He has exhibited solo at Campbel l River Art Gallery\, Thunder Bay Art Gallery\, and Oakville Galleries. Fio na Bowie is a Costa Rica-based artist from Vancouver. She has produced a nu mber of public art projects\, and her work has been exhibited at Western Ga llery (Bellingham\, WA)\, Charles H. Scott Gallery (Vancouver)\, and Yukon Arts Centre (Whitehorse). Matt Browning is an artist from Seattle\, Washing ton. His work has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York)\, Vancouver Art Gallery\, and the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Galler y (Vancouver). Kelly Jazvac is a London\, Ontario-based artist. Her work ha s recently been exhibited at the Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver)\, Par isian Laundry (Montreal)\, and The Philip and Muriel Berman Museum (College ville\, PA). Genevieve Robertson is a Vancouver-based artist. Her work has been exhibited at Touchstones Museum (Nelson)\, The New Gallery (Calgary)\, and Gallery 555 (Toronto). Jay White is an artist and filmmaker based on B owen Island\, BC. His work and films have been exhibited internationally at venues including the Istanbul Design Biennale\, National Arts Centre (Otta wa)\, and Modern Fuel (Kingston).
This exhibition is curated by Weiyi Chang\, a graduate student in Critical and Curatorial Studies at the Unive rsity of British Columbia.
The exhibition is made possible with suppo rt from the Killy Foundation and the Audain Endowment for Curatorial Studie s through the Department of Art History\, Visual Art and Theory in collabor ation with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at the University of Bri tish Columbia.