Book Launch
Saturday
\, November 18\, 2017
2 to 4 pm
Open Studio
401 Richmond Str
eet\, Suite 104
Toronto
If you are in the Toronto area\, please come out to the official launch of a major publication that includes AHVA P rofessor Gu Xiong and AHVA alumni Colin Miner and Raymond Boisjoly\, Th e Source: Rethinking Water Through Contemporary Art.
Contemporar y art can raise awareness of pertinent issues. Although access to fresh wat er is an essential human right\, the resource has become a valuable global commodity. Our era\, marked by rapid climate change\, destructive hydro-cli mactic weather events\, loss of polar ice and rising global sea levels\, is witness to shifting shorelines\, borders\, migration patterns and lines of economic and cultural exchange. In the book called The Source: Rethink ing Water Through Contemporary Art\, writers and artists consider chan ging concepts of water and associated cultural\, political and aesthetic im plications.
The artists in the project are: Nadine Bariteau\, Raymond Boisjoly\, Elizabeth Chitty\, Soheila Esfahani\, Gautam G aroo\, Patrick Mahon\, Colin Miner\, Lucy & Jorge Orta\, a nd Gu Xiong. Water\, of course\, defines the boundaries be tween nations and peoples\, but in the greater scheme of things\, erases di fferences. By bringing together Canadian artists representing Indigenous an d settling cultures\, both French- and English-speaking\, alongside interna tional artists with roots in countries around the globe\, The Source contemplates water from a nationless\, borderless perspective.
Thi s substantial publication was co-published by Rodman Hall Art Centre/Brock University\, St. Catharines\, and Art Lab\, Western University\, London. Th e book features texts by curator Stuart Reid\, Patrick Mahon and renown wat er specialist Robert Sandford. The book also includes conversations between participating artists around several topics related to the theme of water. The book was designed by Rob Gray of Designworks Studios in Toronto\, and beautifully documents the major exhibition project that was mounted in St. Catharines during summer 2014.
The Source\, in part\, reunit ed the participants from Immersion Emergencies and Possible Worlds \, an artist research group that investigated water as culture and resource during two intensive residencies beginning in Niagara in May 2012\, conclu ding at a two-week residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts in May 2013. It was the goal of the Immersion Emergencies project to bring toge ther Canadian and international artists and researchers from multiple backg rounds to highlight a multitude of the linked concerns of those individuals and their work addressing this element. Immersion Emergencies set out to juxtapose competing perspectives and to encourage opposing opinions and values surrounding water. From Niagara Falls on the Great Lakes to the Columbia Icefield in the Canadian Rockies\, the project explored the power of water as an energy source and economic commodity\, shaping the physical world\, defining boundaries\; but also as a sublime spiritual entity that can inspire and humble.
The curator and artists are grateful for the support of Open Studio in the launch of this publication. Open Studio is a charitable\, non-profit\, artist run centre dedicated to the production\, p reservation and promotion of contemporary original fine art prints.
<
em>The Source: Rethinking Water Through Contemporary Art is available
for sale at cost of $25 through
https://brocku.ca/rodman-hall
or
http://www.uwo.ca/visarts/artlab/
For more info rmation on this project\, photos or interviews\, please contact Patrick Mah on at pmahon@uwo.ca.
See also https://immersionemergencies.com
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