Nicole Bauberger: Artist in the Window

Expand

Yukon Artists at Work logo

Whitehorse-based artist Nicole Bauberger will be taking a shift as Artist in the Window next week at Yukon Artists @ Work Society gallery. She will be demonstrating her report on this summer’s Artist in the Window series.

Bauberger worked this summer coordinating the Yukon Artists @ Work Society’s Artist in the Window program. The series of 10 mini-residencies hosted artists demonstrating their work in the gallery windows for the engagement of passers-by and gallery visitors. It included Zoom-based artists talks that are now featured on the YA@W website (yaaw.com). Eight of the artists were current YA@W members, and two were guests. Collaboration with Music Yukon helped fund four of the artists’ time in the window. The society is grateful for the support of an Arts Fund project grant to fund the rest. In particular, the help bringing artists in from Yukon communities, including Faro, Ross River, Haines Junction, and Teslin, made the project more accessible for non-Whitehorse based artists.

The project grew out of the group’s adaptation to Covid realities. After closing their gallery, they realized they could still share their artistic visions by demonstrating their work in the windows, and began taking volunteer shifts doing just that.

When they re-opened, they continued.

The group plans to continue booking shifts around this format. By later this fall, expect to see three-day chunks of time featuring one artist in the window. They will be working the volunteer shifts they need to run the gallery, so if it’s just their tools in the window, they may be inside helping a visitor. “This provides an interesting experience for locals and tourists alike, and allows us to live more fully into our name, as the Yukon Artists @ Work,” reflects YA@W member Nicole Bauberger.

Bauberger undertook the coordination and production management of this summer’s residency series. For her Artist in the Window residency, she plans to work on the grant report as an Artist in the Window demonstration.

“I want to offer the public a glimpse of the grim underbelly of an art practice – grant reporting.” She will share what she’s doing if people ask. You can look over her shoulder at the computer screen, and to be honest, she will welcome the interruption. To add to the performance element, every day at 1:30 she will perform a 5 minute interpretive dance in the window, expressing how she’s feeling about the grant reporting process.

“If I actually get it done, I will treat myself to doing some beading in the window.”

Bauberger will be in residence Weds Sept 16-Friday Sept 18. You can see her in the window 11-4 Weds and Friday and 12-4 Thursday. If she’s not there she may be helping a customer, or having a mild case of hysterics.