Unpacked and Reheated

Artists: Steven Rayner and Brendan Fernandes 

Date: March 2 to April 7, 2007 

Opening:  Friday, March 2 at 8pm

Artists Talks: Saturday, March 3 at Noon

Unpacked and Reheated, a two-person installation that featured work by Brendan Fernandes and Steven Rayner, questioned the uneasy alliance of tourism, place, culture and the environment, by juxtaposing the natural with the hyperreal. 

Both artists took a fresh look at ‘culture’s nature.’ Brendan Fernandes work was initially inspired by the artificial gardens he encountered in his hometown of London ON, "miniature lawn savanas" with plastic animals and plants. As an Indian born in Kenya and raised in Canada, the gardens seemed an apt, but unexpected, expression of colonial or post-colonial subject positions. Fernandes’ installation included souvenir objects within a setting that emphasized the hyper-commercialized values of tourism, itself a particular type of migratory behaviour. Steven Rayner tinkered with the heroic presence of trophy mammals. His scenarios were a bionic equivalent to the popular genre of wildlife art, simultaneously satisfying and irritating.

Brendan Fernandes previous project was On Safari at the McIntosh Gallery, University of Western Ontario. Fernandes recently relocated to participate in the Independent Studies Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Steven Rayner’s quirky work has been exhibited across Canada, most recently in Tranformer Man at Access Art in Vancouver. Rayner was a Sessional lecturer in the Department of Visual Arts, University of Victoria until April 7, 2007. 

Open Space published a catalogue to accompany the exhibition, including essays by Helen Marzolf, Catlin Lewis and Ted Heibert.