Carmen Papalia with Heather Kai Smith: Guidelines

×

Expand

Heather Kai Smith, "Open Access: Claiming Visibility," 2019

pastel on paper, 14" x 22", Courtesy of the artist.

Walter Phillips Gallery at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity presents Guidelines, an exhibition of new and existing works by 2019 Sobey Art Award-nominated artist Carmen Papalia with Heather Kai Smith.

Opening Reception on Friday, June 14 from 6 until 9 p.m. 

“The exhibition reflects a deep collaboration between the artists, as well as with Michael Lis of Goodweather Studio,” said Jacqueline Bell, Curator at Walter Phillips Gallery. “This substantial body of new work offers diverse points of entry into Papalia’s concept of Open Access, via means both direct and poetic.” 

Since 2015, Vancouver based-artist Carmen Papalia's practice has been grounded in the conceptual framework he terms “Open Access”. This set of five tenants draw on Papalia's experience as a non-visual learner, a term he chooses to identify with over the medicalizing terminology of blind or visually impaired. Emphasizing what he understands as an institution's social accessibility, the framework of Open Access advocates for the artist's understanding of "accessibility as social practice" – a temporary experience that requires a relational approach to mutual care. 

For this exhibition, Papalia is collaborating with Heather Kai Smith on an animation titled Open Access: Claiming Visibility (2019), which visually interprets the concept. The animation will be presented alongside a series of works on paper by Smith, as well as a new sound work developed at Banff Centre. Primarily working in drawing, Smith often engages ideas of mutual support through careful renderings of archival protest documentation. 

Materially emphasizing the labour, as well as ephemeral nature inherent in a relational approach to accessibility, the commissioned works will mark the Vancouver-based artists' first collaboration. 

Public programming during the exhibition includes: 

•    Exhibition Tours // July 3 and August 21 at 5 p.m. •    Art Break // July 31 at 12 p.m.