If the river ran upwards

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Carolina Caycedo, "To stop being a threat and to become a promise," 2017

still from two-channel HD video. Courtesy of the artist.

Walter Phillips Gallery at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity is pleased to present If the river ran upwards, a group exhibition curated by Jacqueline Bell. 

Opening reception on Friday, June 15 at 6 P.M.

The summer exhibition features new and existing works from Canadian and International artists including:

• Silvina Babich (Argentina)
• Alana Bartol (Calgary)
• Diane Borsato (Toronto)
• Carolina Caycedo (Los Angeles)
• T'uy't'tanat-Cease Wyss & Anne Riley (Vancouver)
• Genevieve Robertson (Nelson)

If the river ran upwards reflects artists’ engagements with regions across the Americas that have been sites of industrial activity. Working across materials and processes, the selected works can be understood in relation to visual scholar Nicholas Mirzoeff's concept of "countervisuality;" offering depictions of ecological sites that counter dominant Western modes of representation which have consistently privileged the land's extractive value. In this framing, the exhibition draws on prominent cultural critics T.J. Demos' and Macarena Gómez-Barris' recent engagements with Mirzoeff’s concept, with the shared intent of problematizing depictions of landscapes that naturalize or glorify the presence of large-scale industrial activity.

The exhibition will feature video and sculptural works by Los Angeles-based artist, Carolina Caycedo, who is currently exhibiting at the Whitney Museum, New York; as well in the upcoming Made in L.A. 2018 Biennial at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Over the past five years, Caycedo has developed Be Dammed, a body of work that highlights how large dams have impacted various bio-regions across the Americas. New and existing works by artists Genevieve Robertson (Nelson) and Silvina Babich (Argentina) also explore the relationships between large-scale industries and the riverine communities that are local to their respective regions.

Calgary-based artist Alana Bartol will premiere a new video that builds on her ongoing work, the Orphan Well Adoption Agency (OWAA); a fictional non-profit organization that reflects on the role of care-taking in the oil and gas industry. Toronto-based artist Diane Borsato will also debut a new video work, Gems and Minerals (2018), where museum guides interpret the histories of rocks and minerals displayed within a museum context. Visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to experience a new sound work by Vancouver-based artists T'uy't'tanat-CeaseWyss & Anne Riley, Soundtrack for the Radical Love of Butterflies (2018). This work was developed in response to Butterfly Garden, a permanent public artwork at Banff Centre by the late artist Mike MacDonald. This living artwork is situated outdoors adjacent to the Walter Phillips Gallery, and is intended to provide habitat for migrating butterflies as well as to highlight the ecological importance of these indicator species.