Chantal Gibson - A Grammar of Loss: Studies in Erasure
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Open Space 510 Fort Street, 2nd floor, Victoria, British Columbia V8W 1E6
Chantal Gibson, "Erasure Series #3 side view," 2020
mixed media, photo credit Chantal Gibson
Friends,
In response to the developing situation with COVID-19, and in order to protect those who engage with Open Space as well as Open Space staff, we are closing the gallery and office until further notice.
The last two weeks of Chantal Gibson’s show, A Grammar of Loss, have been cancelled. However, we will have documentation of the show available online soon for those who missed the chance to see it in person!
Chantal’s community residency (March 20-27) and artist talk at UVic Visual Arts have also been postponed until further notice.
Other upcoming events have been postponed indefinitely, including:
- Vogue session Saturday, March 21
- MAGIK performance Saturday, April 4
Stay tuned for word about programming scheduled to take place later on in April and May.
Though it’s still early days on the island, we know that the actions we take now can have a significant impact on how our communities weather this virus. We hope you are taking time to take care of each other and seeking out ways to support those most at risk, including immunocompromised folks, the elderly, and houseless communities. Let's keep us safe!
Chantal Gibson A Grammar of Loss: Studies in Erasure, a show of new and recent work building on her 2019 exhibition, How She Read: Confronting the Romance of Empire.
Wielding black ink, black paint, and black liquid rubber, the exhibition explores the dis/comfort - the ideological stickiness—of engaging in this de/colonial moment. It offers a visually poetic response to the questions “What does it mean to decolonize a text? And what does it really mean to confront Empire?”
The exhibition features new digital works and altered texts, and includes Souvenir, the collection of 2000 blackened souvenir spoons that debuted at the Royal Ontario Museum in 2018, and featured in Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art. Gibson will also transform part of the gallery into a public art studio, bringing with her The Other James Baldwin, an ongoing altered book project that invites visitors to engage with colonial texts of the past to reimagine the future.
Gibson will be on hand for a week-long community residency from March 21-28 which will include workshops with educators and gallery visitors, inviting them to participate in activity and discussion around the historical and ongoing erasure of Black, Indigenous, and racialized bodies in the Canadian education system. Exploring methods of decentering colonial thought in the classroom, this workshop/studio time will open space to collaborate and co-create with other artists, educators, communities, and institutions.