Spill

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Susan Schuppli, "Nature Represents Itself (detail)," 2018

Public Events and Reception

All events take place at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery 

Wednesday, October 16 at 2 pm

Performative Talk by Nelly César

Thursday, October 17 from 6 to 9 pm

Public Reception

Saturday, October 19 at 6 pm

Conversation with Teresa Montoya, Genevieve Robertson and Susan Schuppli

Sunday, October 20 at 6 pm

Conversation with Anne Riley and T'uy't'tanat Cease Wyss

Tuesday, October 22 at 4 pm

Performance Intervention with artists and students

Involving installations, live research, performance and radio programming, Spill is curated by Lorna Brown and presents work by Carolina Caycedo, Nelly César, Guadalupe Martinez, Teresa Montoya, Anne Riley, Genevieve Robertson, Susan Schuppli and T’uy’t’tanat Cease Wyss. Spill: Response, curated by Guadalupe Martinez, re-centres the gallery as a site for embodiment, with visiting artist César in collaboration with Riley and Wyss. Throughout the project, Spill: Radio, curated by Tatiana Mellema, will present radio episodes in collaboration with CiTR 101.9 FM.

Installations by Caycedo, Montoya, Robertson and Schuppli focus on our continental waters and the conditions of their impaired movement, contamination and political rights. Susan Schuppli’s Nature Represents Itself (2018) examines the Deepwater Horizon accident through a simulated image based on the properties of the hydrocarbon atoms of the escaped crude oil. Releasing millions of computational particles assigned as oil or water through gaming software, the video loop is combined with audio sourced from the lawsuit against BP filed by Ecuador on behalf of the rights of nature. Genevieve Robertson presents work from her ongoing project Still Running Water (2017) which follows the Columbia River from source to mouth. Her video installation holds both the presence and absence of the dammed river, as reservoirs empty to reveal drowned forests and former habitations. Gravity acting on silty water is captured by Robertson in a drawing on large sheets of paper. Carolina Caycedo’s Serpent River Book (2017) gathers images and texts from the artist’s work in Colombian, Brazilian and Mexican communities affected by the industrialization and privatization of river systems. This performative book can be unfolded and pleated in multiple formations creating new meandering pathways and meanings. Teresa Montoya’s work critically engages with photography as she uses it to trace millions of gallons of acidic mine waste discharged into the San Juan River that flows across the Navajo Nation. Yellow Water (2016) is one of many projects that posit territorial dispossession and environmental toxicity as pervasive features of contemporary Indigenous life—while affirming how communities are sustained through water in landscapes in which it is scarce. Together, these installations invite integrated layers of real-time research and performance.

Spill: Response, 16-23 October 2019

Curated by Guadalupe Martinez, the live research and performance component brings together activists, performance artists and educators whose practices deeply consider relationships between the body, the land and forms of pedagogy that engage with healing, love and sustainability as collaborative methodologies. Visiting artist Nelly César will collaborate with Maria Thereza Alves, Anne Riley and Cease Wyss within the Belkin Gallery and surrounding locations on the unceded Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories. Extending their activities into local sites such as the UBC Farm, the Fraser River and sites of protest, the artists will present talks, workshops and performances over the course of the visit.

Spill: Radio, New episodes aired Tuesdays from 10 to 11 am

Curated by Tatiana Mellema in collaboration with CiTR 101.9 FM, the radio program will present weekly podcast episodes that anticipate, extend and enrich the themes of Spill. Rather than educational supplement, the radio platform will provide its own critical space of praxis moving towards collective research. Interviews, readings, performances and field recordings will offer insight into artistic processes engaged with the land, territory, extraction and embodied performance. These episodes will carry forward influential work by artists, writers and community organizers – ranging from those resisting the Transmountain Pipeline expansion to artistic practices that engage with soundscapes of the land.