Co-curated by Gabrielle Moser and Lorna Brown\, the e xhibition features photographic works from the Belkin’s permanent collectio n\, the private collection of AHVA professor John O’Brian and the research archiv e of Marcia Crosby. Focusing on practices of photography as simultaneously art and document\, the exhibition is ordered around several themes: proposi tions for the use of public space\, whether through buildings\, artworks or social activities\; the surveillance of the public and performances for th e camera\; and the way that photographic records create potential histories for Vancouver.
The photograph – as an encounter between the photogra pher and the photographed – offers a way to re-read the past as unfinished\ , in flux and not yet normative\, and to imagine a future that might produc e a different set of relations between social subjects.
At the same t ime\, the exhibition launches a series of investigations of the public real m of the UBC campus as new buildings and re-formed landscapes shift the mea nings of works in the Outdoor Art Collection. A revised self-guided tour bo oklet of UBC's Outdoor Art Collection will be available and video responses to several works in the collection by local artists and writers will be la unched on the Gallery's website. A publication will accompany the exhibitio n with writing by Lorna Brown\, Marcia Crosby\, Gabrielle Moser and John O' Brian.
The Belkin’s exhibitions and publications are made possible wi th the support of the Canada Council for the Arts\, the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council\, and our Belkin Curator’s Forum memb ers. We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Morris and Helen Belkin Foundation\, the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program and the individuals who donate works of art to our collection. New initiatives to animate the Outdoor Art Collection are made possible with t he support of the Province of British Columbia | Canada 150 Fund. We are gr ateful to John O’Brian and Marcia Crosby for their generous loan of works f rom their collections.