Big Rock Candy Mountain | After Wrappers
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Nanaimo Art Gallery 150 Commercial Street, Nanaimo, British Columbia V9R 5G6

Big Rock Candy Mountain, “Beet Boba Bottle,” 2024
detail from After Wrappers, Dawson City, Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in Territory. Custom glass lid and bottle, with nerds and beet boba, as designed by Grade 6 student Taliyah, Approx 6 x 2.5″ (Photo by John Howland) (courtesy of the Gallery)
Opening Reception: Friday May 2nd, 7 - 9 pm
Big Rock Candy Mountain is an artist-run flavor incubator and taste-making think-tank between Hannah Jickling, Reed H. Reed, a variety of guest artists, and elementary school students.
“The artworks in this exhibition are the result of dynamic collaborations between artists and elementary school students. What a great way to celebrate our 2025 inquiry “How can we play together?” -Curator, Jesse Birch
After Wrappers is an exhibition by Big Rock Candy Mountain that features new installations of previous projects along with new creative experiments, and educational programs. Projects featured in the exhibition include sculptures, video, prints, and edible objects. SOUR VS SOUR is a chocolate bar developed with Grade 3 and 4 students at Queen Alexandra Elementary School in East Vancouver, that combines fine dark chocolate from East Van Roasters, with the flavour preferences of the kids. The title of the exhibition was taken from After Wrappers, a collaboration with Grade 5 and 6 students from Hätrʼunohtän zho/Robert Service School in Dawson City, Yukon, in which the participants designed glass bottle shapes and a soda flavour concept. The artists commissioned glass blower Jesse Bromm to bring these unconventionally shaped bottle designs to life and the results are on display along with collagraphs and monoprints created from street and school ground refuse. The SOUR VS SOUR chocolate bars will be present in the gallery and available for purchase in the Gallery Store.
Big Rock Candy Mountain produces edible editions, workshops, and installations with a focus on sensory experience. Schools become candy factories, where artists and children work together to critically riff on the cultural industries that address young people, and to create new tastes on our own terms.