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Virginia Abbott and Ilze Bebris

July 23 - August 2

Atists' Talk August 3 @ noon 

Longing for connection and permanence is a site-specific installation in which Virginia Abbott and Ilze Bebris will work in the gallery, employing 10,000 coffee stir sticks and hot glue to create a sculptural structure over the course of five days. The final piece will depend on the ideas, energy, dexterity and technical ability of the artists as they create the work. The only promise the artists have made to themselves is that they will allow the work to become something tenuous, undermining their expectations of solidity and the permanence of built structures. This is in direct contradiction to the carefully planned methods that they usually use in their practice. The completed project will likely look like a fragile web - an improvised construction which has grown into fragile extensions, reaching towards the ceiling or the wall, bending, leaning towards collapse, still under construction. 

Sheila Ie and Carey Ann Schaefer

July 23 - August 3

Artists' Talk August 3 @ noon

The Perfect Distance is a poetic and complex collaboration between artists Sheila Ie and Carey Ann Schaefer in which the two will be travelling towards one another from separate cities to a geographical mid-point. The predetermined destination will include an abandoned "found" building that they will paint white, marking their arrival. Before reaching this mutual destination, they will each record sounds and gather other documentation from their respective journeys. Upon their return to Victoria, they will present their collection of sounds, images, information and memories as an installation in the gallery. The title of the work proposes that we consider "the perfect distance" - what makes it perfect and how do we measure the mid-point of two distances - from where to where do we go?
 

Marci Rabe and Kristy Farkas

Performance July 20, 8 pm

Artists' Talk July 27 @ noon

Composers Marci Rabe and Kristy Farkas confront the creative act of composition in an performance that embraces the lasting impression of memories. The merging of individually composed musical gestures melds with an evocative visual performance that converges the audience with the performance space. Invoked by intricate subtleties, the voice, double bass and percussion instruments create a delicate yet sometimes crass spectrum of sound. The naked body is explored as sculpture and canvas to express intimate experiences and connections with others. Colour, music, movement and touch form born naked - art in progress. 

Lisa Anderson, Meg Walker, Ian Avery and Greg Corness

Performance July 19, 8 pm

Artists' Talk July 27 at noon

Re: miss Understanding consists of three premiere compositions by poets Lisa Anderson and Meg Walker and composers Ian Avery and Greg Corness. This collaboration will highlight notions about how one can be interpreted or misinterpreted, understood or misunderstood within the context of a group. For example, in the second composition, "What I really mean/What you really mean", the individuals will rally against the loss of their singular voice within the group. As one poet performs a text solo, the other begins to restate, paraphrase and misquote the original text. The first poet interrupts and tries to clarify her original statement, but she is limited to only using the words from the original text. Using a process of structured improvisation, various sounds will be layered into the compositions throughout the concert. Some of the sounds will be recorded live and immediately played back, others will range from prerecorded quotations and aphorisms that are part of the common vernacular, to sounds from a trumpet and a typewriter, to other found and electronic samples. 

Marina Roy and Abbas Akhavan

July 12-17

Artists' Talk July 13 at noon

In Greener Pastures, Marina Roy and Abbas Akhavan set out to explore and question the identity of place, the economy of consumption, and the packaging of cultural experiences in Victoria's tourism industry. Two videos, Bombay Sapphire and Royal Victoria Security, will be projected on a continuous loop in a darkened area of the gallery. The installation will deliberately utilize iconic items connected to Victoria's colonial history. Visitors will be able to seat themselves on an old mattress which will be placed on a rolled out bed of grass on the gallery floor. They will then be invited to sip tea from fine china while they view the videos. In other words, it's a whole new way of experiencing "high tea" in what is often known as the "Garden City" - just don't expect the Queen to be there.