- August 28, 2014 to December 31, 2014
-
Grunt’s 30th anniversary is in many ways about finding surprising things in familiar spaces. As we witness internationally the proliferation of artists’ practices that seek or are influenced by “the social”, and as we consider also our own hyper-local connections here in the Mount Pleasant community, ideas of engagement have been top of mind. In some aspects, it’s a question of support: how can we as curators or institutions support practices that no longer adhere to the traditional expectations of the exhibition? How might forms of engagement be broad, rigorous, unexpected, productive—as well as charismatic? How might we promote spaces of common connection while maintaining challenging content, unique collaborations, and productive friction? No clear answers of course, but in this, as in most things, we turn to artists. Our program of 30th anniversary artist projects is designed to engage on diverse levels. Focussing on projects that take place outside the gallery walls in public or shared spaces, our intent has been around finding productive intersections between art practices and community concerns—be they spatial, discursive or social. Our first project is a 3-month long residency with artist Julia Feyrer within our archive, Media Gallery and Main Gallery spaces. Beginning with the idea of “The Kitchen”—at times the creative and social heart of the grunt gallery—Feyrer will create a new installation and media commission that incorporates elements of grunt’s rich archive of performance and exhibition documentation, as well as the lesser known and harder-to-trace narratives of social connection and creative foment that have informed this institution. Process-based and meticulously—if playfully—constructed, Feyrer’s work is both densely material and intellectually airy; that is, her work challenges the viewer to engage both a tactile experience in this present moment, while simultaneously considering the transformative potential of perception, over time and through space. Feyrer’s use of film and sound acts as a conduit for seeing and, importantly, for experiencing an archival document. As part of a program we’re calling “Brew”, artists Sonny Assu and Lorna Brown have created “social objects”– artist editions that are designed to circulate in the social spaces such as bars or restaurants in Mount Pleasant. Here, engagement is potentially fleeting, but the objects themselves act as small moments of contact—an aesthetic and poetic complement to the fabric of life in this neighbourhood. Brown’s work—a refillable beer growler—specifically calls for a consideration of time and place, and considers the question of cyclical return. Calling to mind questions of history, of habit, of paths built and repeated. Other Brew projects will be announced later in the season, but each piece places artists into specific conversations with spaces and community members. From embedded residencies within community groups, to artist-designed objects, to intervention practices and artist-led discussions, this series opens a sociable consideration of this neighbourhood, and—we hope—proposes a kind of tenderness for the spaces we share. These porous, attentive practices encourage us to connect, to see differently, to return each time with a new perspective.
By Alistair MacLennan, David Khang, Julia Feyrer, Lorna Brown, Marcus Bowcott, Sonny Assu - Curated by Glenn Alteen, Vanessa Kwan
724 Programs
Programs- February 6, 1990 to February 17, 1990
-
The work was a video collage of the mountain range in the traditional territory of the Gitksan Wet'suwet'en people. It functions as both a homage and a protest against the threatened clearcut.
By Mike MacDonald
7 Photographic Works
- April 2, 1998 to April 26, 1998
-
No description available
By Shi Yong
A Concept Over Another Concept
-
No description available
A Country + Western Jamboree
- March 28, 1989 to April 8, 1989
-
Flowers are a reoccurring subject in Brenna George's art. Her use of attractive materials- tin, pine boards, and plastic flowers- add to the lush images. The beauty of the image is balanced by underlying concerns which range from unfulfilling employment to hidden personal potential.
By Brenna George
A Garden of
- January 12, 1993 to January 30, 1993
-
Collage work, framed in boxes. Pictures and objects tell the story of Polly Bak's life, accompanied by stories/anecdotes from her life experiences.
By Polly Bak
A Good-Hearted White Girls’ Search For Identity
-
No description available
A Mile in my Moccasins
- October 22, 2004
-
"If you're lucky enough not to succumb to a childhood illness, you'll live long enough to watch your pets die." - Caitlin Cary Heartache, suicide, apocalypse...and all the big questions. Through a lens of song and story. With able assistance from Glen Watts
By Lizard Jones
A Performance in Three Parts with a Little Skill and Borrowed Talent
- September 15, 1998 to October 3, 1998
-
The work of new York based artist, Tim Watkins has traditionally combined mechanical kinetic sculpture and organic forms. In this series, he moves towards more personal themes reflective of his life.
By Tim Watkins - Curated by Glenn Alteen
A Sea
- November 1, 2019 to December 14, 2019
-
“How do you remember the past the most?”
Equal parts family recollection, historical research and spectral diary, Coco Means Ghost forms the moving image focal point of Gabi Dao’s new installation. Rooted in Dao’s research along the Mekong Delta and her own family’s history between cultures, a sentimental dissidence employs sculpture, video and sound to put imagined contemporary and historical diasporic voices in conversation. At the centre of the exhibition is a haunting: the eponymous narrator (a ghost in the form of a coconut) resists a singular place and time, moving freely, if not lightly, through personal photographs, contemporary commentary and archival material. Other characters appear– Lan, Ong Nam, Mr.Le, Quang, An, Nguyen and Dung–and together they tell the fragmented story of Ong Dao Dua ( ‘Mr.Coconut’), a monk who founded a small, self-sustaining, anti-war community in the late 1960s-70’s on Con Phung, an island colloquially known to westerners as the “Coconut Kingdom.” Through the lens of Ong Dao Dua’s oft-mythologized character, the work becomes an avenue to explore and enmesh broader notions of memory, nationhood, belief, belonging and dreams for the future.
Dao combines the single-channel video with sonically activated sculptures that transmit her family’s narrative in another form: excerpts from “Foreign Accent Improvement” cassettes used by the artist’s parents in the 1980s. a sentimental dissidence points to texture and poetics rather than conclusive fact, and creates a landscape that at once immerses, entangles and pushes back.
1. coco means ghost: Screen & Video, 25m24s, followed by a short pause. HD video, 2.1 sound, LED lights, cans of coconut water, photograph, bench & pillows.
2. you and i, i and you: Sculptures & Audio, 6m30s, followed by a short pause. Beaded curtains, UV reducing window vinyl, transducers, tempered glass, aluminum.
Accessibility: Hearing Access: Un-captioned English audio, some subtitled Vietnamese (written in English). Sight Access: Low light conditions
By Gabi Dao - Curated by Vanessa Kwan