Open Space opened Manufactured Nostalgias, an exhibition of photo-based work by Roja Aslani (Kelowna), d bradley muir (Victoria), and Martin Beauregard (Montreal) on Friday night, March 4, at 7:30 p.m. Each of the three artists refers to popular culture, tourism, and the entertainment industry to activate complicated images informed or challenged by nostalgia.

Martin Beauregard’s Drive End mobilizes the mythic figure of the cowboy, starring his 88-year-old grandfather, splicing the Hollywood cowboy with an industrial landscape all bathed in an elegiac glow. Roja Aslani invokes the television culture/entertainment industry by inviting people to create costumes and inhabit sets (based in personal domestic setting). D. Bradley Muir considers incipient nostalgias of parked camper trailers, but he offsets these placid images with fragmented landscape details.

Roja Aslani is a Persian Canadian artist who explores different nostalgia toward past film and fiction. Roja has a psychology degree from the University of Alberta, a BFA from the University of British Columbia-Okanagan, and an MFA in sculpture from the Edinburgh College of Art. Aslani has shown in Berlin, Toronto, Kelowna, Vernon, London, Edinburgh, and Tallinn.

Martin Beauregard is a graduate of the École des beaux arts de Bordeaux. He is currently completing his doctorate in research-creation at the Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Université du Québec à Montréal. His work has been exhibited at Location One Gallery (New York 2006), L’OEil de poisson (Quebec City 2006), Asahi Art Square (Tokyo 2005), CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (France 2005), and the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts (Montréal 2010).

d bradley muir investigates the construction of landscape as it is expressing in images of urban sprawl, romantic Canadian landscape tradition, and domestic dreams and desires. Muir studied at Langara College, Concordia University (BFA), and the University of Victoria (MFA). Muir’s work has been shown recently at the Art Gallery of Calgary (2011), the Nanaimo Art Gallery (2009), and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.