JULY 16 - SEPTEMBER 18, 2010
MEDIA RELEASE
In the public sphere, numerous groups, massive and miniscule, municipal and national, argue ardently for the protection of endangered spaces. But, looking past the polarized debate between these groups and those who wish to destroy and redevelop spaces, this social environmental phenomenon and its manifestation present an often unexplored complexity.
The question of what is inside these ecological endangered spaces, how we preserve them and the way their natural history relates to human history provides not only a way to explore these environments, but also a way to dissect and examine the concept of preservation, of protecting spaces.
Transformation and Memory – Endangered Spaces is an open ended exploration of these concepts and of these spaces. In essence, the artists want to examine the history and substance of eco spaces while focusing on two particular sites: the Langley Bog and Colony Farm.All three artists are interested in the natural histories of these eco spaces which are rife with human contact. Colony Farm was cleared and run, in large part, by the patients of the Riverview Mental Health Facility and the Langley Bog was mined for peat moss between 1958 and 1980. With their own distinct style and practice, each artist investigates these protected sites.
In Insertions and Intrusions, Doris Hutton Auxier explores the external socio-political forces that threaten the biodiversity and continued protection of the Langley Bog. In her second series, she renders tiny banal organic material from the bog, isolating it and exponentially increasing its size, drawing attention to the particularities of each minute object and examining the relationship between the specific and the general.
Suzanne Northcott, using photography, video and mixed media, places natural landscapes and the remnants of human history, manufactured objects from Colony Farm, in opposition. Formally, she constructs an association between disparate elements encouraging the viewer to analyze, explore, and make sense of these relationships.
Jeff R. Warren, creating an interactive sound installation, permits the viewer to audibly mimic the relationship between humans and ecological spaces. Concerned with Acoustic Ecology, he highlights how we continue to affect, alter and transform preserved spaces.
As collaboration, the way the work of each artist plays against that of the other artists brings new dynamics to each of their work. It provides an opportunity to experience the layers of meaning in each individual work, the artists’ complete series and the exhibit as a whole. Against a backdrop of endangered spaces, these artists provide a rich investigation of the ideas surrounding preservation. Possibly providing more new questions than answers, this exhibit allows the viewer to contemplate all human interaction with ecological spaces, endangered or otherwise.
