Water Work Space

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Tara Nicholson, "Arctic Claims series, Icebergs, (detail) Disko Bay," 2015

limited edition archival pigment print, Image courtesy of the artist.

There is a Public Open House on Saturday, Sept. 16 from 10:00-5:00; admission is free."See, hear, feel, think about water!" at the AGGV

Water Work Space at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria Sept. 16, 2017 - Jan. 7, 2018 will be part exhibition and part workshop, functioning much like a research and development department investigating the watery essence of the world. Water as highway. Water as resource. Water as a conduit of trade, exchange, and colonization. Water and climate change. Water as cool, contemplative beauty.

Within the Water Work Space exhibition, there will be both artwork displayed and interactive areas, offering visitors an invitation to see, hear, feel, think about water -- and make a contribution. What role does water play in your life? In the life of your community?

Water Work Space is a site for the exchange of ideas to fuel our inquiry-based project Wa’witlala: The Pervasiveness of Water/Cannot Go Against the Tide. This collaboration with artist Marianne Nicolson and AGGV curators Nicole Stanbridge and Michelle Jacques, aims to explore issues related to water from an Indigenous worldview and create space for discussions across cultures and disciplines. Water Work Space will allow us to collect and share the initiatives of water protectors, artists, ecologists, and activists around the world. In this way, it’s hope we can collectively start to understand where we need to go and how we might get there.

Featured in the exhibition: recent works by Victoria based artist Tara Nicholson from her photo series Artic Claims which looks at sites of climate change research in Greenland, Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk. Poetry and installation of A River of Migration by Vancouver based artists Gu Xiong whose states, “Migration flows like a salmon run; there is a tie between migrants who carry the strength of the river, not of fresh water but of culture and change.” Marianne Nicolson’s recent work The Sun is Setting on the British Empire which reworks elements of the British Colombia flag and incorporates her own iconography as a way to symbolically alter the economic and political relationships it signifies. Works from the AGGV collection which include Gwenda Morgan, Mark Henderson, Walter J. Phillips, N.E. Thing Co. Ltd and more…