OPENING: 

08 October 2024 – From 7.00 alle 9.00 pm. 

Until 02 November 2024.

WHERE:  

FAB gallery – University of Alberta (CANADA).

Curated by CHLOË LUM and YANNICK DESRANLEAU

We live our lives and experience the world through materials, objects, things—in return, these things are how we construct and affirm ourselves; we choose them because their properties help us interface with and navigate the world. From the associations we make with these objects and what we read as their anthropomorphic “behaviors”, meanings erupt, turning our relationship with the thing as one that is simultaneously extremely personal and highly political.

The works chosen for this exhibition show how, through their manipulation and display, objects are by default imbued with an innate theatricality. In the performances enacted onscreen, they take the role of “props”—a simple tool or vehicle enhancing a given gesture—or they populate the environment in which the performance happens, enhancing the dramaturgy to the point of exuberance—qualified as “camp”. This selection of video works surveys a spectrum of approaches, sketching a gamut of expressions possible through the material: from the poetic, through the personal, the zany, and to the political. These artists demonstrate “stuff” as a vehicle to reach a depth in nuance not possible with gestures or text alone.

Artists:

Maya Ben David; Mike Bourschied; Edith Brunette François Lemieux; Océane Buxton & Salesforce Child; Marissa Sean Cruz; Rah Eleh; Erica Eyres; Beth Frey; Séamus Gallagher; Geneviève Matthieu; Lenore Claire Herrem; Marisa Hoicka; Mathieu Lacroix; Amy Lockhart; Elizabeth Milton; Bridget Moser; Sin Wai Kin.