Contemporary Art

Denyse Thomasos: Odyssey, In Conversation with Gaëtane Verna, Sarah Milroy, and Esi Edugyan

On February 10, 2022 the AGGV hosted a virtual online conversation with the curators of the exhibition Denyse Thomasos: Odyssey, Gaëtane Verna, Director of The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, and Sarah Milroy, chief curator at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. They were joined by Victoria based award winning novelist Esi Edugyan who contributed to the exhibition publication. This conversation with Verna, Milroy and Edugyan was an opportunity to hear about Thomasos from a range of perspectives.

Collaborative GIF Mosaic: Building a New Inventory

By Marina DiMaio, Digital & Print Assets Coordinator

Howie Tsui’s solo exhibition Retainers of Anarchy has come and gone from the AGGV Galleries, but the artist’s immersive storytelling environments continue to live on in a digital installation on our website — through a Collaborative GIF Mosaic!

Inspired by Tsui’s referential video collage, Threading Needles through the Pupil, previously installed in the exhibition, this Collaborative GIF Mosaic offers the opportunity for artists and anyone from the community to engage with Tsui’s interest in visual sampling, memory and nostalgia which permeate his recent media work.

Dear Indigenous Child

By Ross Neasloss Jr. (Kitasoo Xai Xai’s Nation)

The Holding Ground exhibit, has been a monumental experience for me. Working with so many Indigenous folks from all across turtle island. We met bi-weekly to share stories, and hold space for our deep emotions and connections to the land and each other. Along with my personal journey of land based healing, I received some wonderful words and messages during those times. These messages I got, I do not carry lightly, as they deserve to be held with care and compassion.

Rethinking Emily: The Responsibility We Carry

By Mel Granley, Guest Curator

Emily Carr has become almost synonymous with the Pacific Northwest; her work being displayed year-round in different exhibition contexts to ensure the satisfaction of visitors to the AGGV. This drive to see her work is directed by the idea of checking off a list of great and thoroughly known artists within the artistic canon. The issue? The “art canon” is heavily Euro-Western centered and very keenly demonstrates a bias for settler-European art, while largely failing to acknowledge the artistic merits of historic and contemporary BIPOC artists.

Serendipitous technologies: a human-human-machine collaboration

By Marina DiMaio, Digital Potentials Advisory Coordinator

Sometimes the projects that we do at the AGGV do not always ‘fit’ within the standard white-cubed gallery spaces you will find in our building on Moss Street. Sometimes our curatorial projects take place in remote communities, deep in the basement archives, in collaboration with other arts institutions, or in this case, within a kind of algorithmic museum!