8/1/2022

Exhibition Statement

This exhibition examines the complexities of disconnection for connection. The place where we confront the colonial structures that have left us fragmented in between spaces, not here and not there. Trying to understand who we are in the contradictory and often competing latitudes of our personal landscapes requires to break from imperialistic ideas of what we ought to be to fit a label. It requires to build new sources of inner power that enable us to finally find a place of connection.

Artist are featured as they appeared in the gallery.

01 - Liz Kim, Blue within My Framework

Instagram: @lizkim.art

01 – Artist Statement

I consider the color blue with different associations. To me, blue means loneliness, but also happiness and freedom. I associate it as such, as I refer to the color within nature, especially the blue sky or the blue ocean. Within such a vast amount of space, it's easy to feel alone, but that also comes with the happiness of freedom.

The duality of the sea and the sky connects to my two cultural identities. I consider the blue sky to represent the world I knew living in Korea, and the blue ocean to be the world I came to when I immigrated to Canada. 

Although we know the sky is bigger than the sea, there’s still much more unknown within the sea than the sky. The unfamiliarity of the ocean is the sense I got when I immigrated to Canada and was forced to adapt. The suffocation. Inability to verbally speak up when I chose not to submit to the change. I needed to teach myself how to breathe underwater, to swim rather than fly, and be cautious not to drown rather than fly away too far.  

Although the duality of my identity is always reminded in my waking moments, in my dream, I’m able to visit a place where the sky touches the sea and merges together into blue. The disconnections of my two cultures are merged together and connected to one in my dream. 

02 – Artist Bio

Liz Kim is a Korean Canadian emerging artist, currently studying in Alberta University of the Arts. In her works, she explores creative ways to visualize her experience of immigration, through exploring the themes of memories, dreams, connection and disconnection, and fragmentation over time. 

02 - Ursula Sokòł, Tinkunanchiskama

Instagram: @mach_patch & @ursu_minor

01 – Artist Statement

Tinkunanchiskama is Quechua for "see you later/ till we meet again.” Over time this light sensitive crayon drawing of my grandparents/abuelos from a photograph of a photograph will change colour and eventually disappear. The memories I have of my ancestors have been distorted and erased leaving me feeling stranded and disconnected from them and my Peruvian/Andean culture.

Long ago my abuela Asunta passed away giving birth, leaving her three children behind. My bisabuela (her name is lost) then took care of my mom until she saw that her grandchild would have a better life with my abuelita Blanca. Although I never knew them, my biological abuelos were mixed indigenous and their practices and culture were partially lost from this complex series of events. Both my parents (from different countries) emigrated to Canada and far from their home and family. This made it hard to have any connection to my cultural backgrounds.

Despite this difficulty I am re-learning my culture that has been forgotten and erased. My ancestors will remain nameless but not fully forgotten. As my grandparents fade, new scraps of memories will be mixed with the old to bring the past and the present together and transform it into something new.

02 – Artist Bio

Graduated from AUArts and based in Calgary Ursula Sokół is a mixed Peruvian/Andean, Polish artist. Through performance, costume making, and drawing Ursula utilizes myth and storytelling as a mechanism that explores in-between identities, othering, and spatial limbos. They hope to learn from discomfort they experience and transform into strength.

03 - kyle Anderson-nguyen, ((cyber/mold))

01 – Artist Statement

Living as an uninvited guest in Mohkinstsis (colonially known as Calgary) I work as an interdisciplinary visual artist, primarily focusing in painting and drawing. Exploring themes of mental health, trauma, and Asian diaspora. I use large-scale, mixed media works as a vehicle to breakdown connotations and bring light to these elements within these themes that are often overlooked. The use of mixed media pieces allows me to portray the depth and texture surrounding my chosen themes. Drawing inspiration from comic books, video games, movies and music; I aim create works that submerge the viewer into the chaotic, existential, and hopeful world I have created living as a first-generation Vietnamese-Canadian; while simultaneously heal my own inner-child. Using bright, simplified imagery, my work is made to be both enigmatic vulnerable. Leaving room for the viewer to paste each work into their own life.

02 – Artist Bio

Kyle Anderson-Nguyen (b.1995) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in in Mohkinstsis (Calgary) Canada.

04 - Christina Yao, Untitled, from the MASCULINITY Series

Instagram: @cristinadass

01 – Artist Statement

In 2021, the Chinese Ministry of Education announced a proposal to strengthen education to avoid feminization of teenage boys and make them more masculine. The policy reminded me of the values and assumptions I encountered growing up in China, where I learned that men who embodied feminine qualities and behaviors were inferior. Such narrow ideas and frameworks around gender result in a society that narrowly defines the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. Having now lived in both North and South America, I have begun to question masculinity as it is expressed in different cultural milieus and realized that the Western definition of masculinity is also very narrow. Masculinity is a mask – one that both harms and protects, and both obscures and reveals. MASCULINITY is an ongoing series that explores and celebrates various ways of “being a man”, especially concerned with expressions of vulnerability and the dynamics of objectification. I photograph friends of varying nationalities and sexual orientations, often inspired by their personal stories and life interests. Influenced by artists Aneta Bartos and Yushi Li, I sometimes place myself into the frame to explore the power dynamic in human relationships, while also acting as an outsider entering the personal space of these individuals. My goal is to go beyond the conventional perception of masculine attributes and promote a more progressive view of masculinity. I am interested in fostering an open conversation about gender roles while spotlighting narratives around men’s internal emotional lives.

02 – Artist Bio

Christina is a Calgary-based photographer who grew up in China and lived in different multicultural countries such as the U.S., Colombia, and Canada. The experience of working for a major multinational corporation as well as travelling in Europe and Latin America made her devote herself to photography to tell fascinating stories of people and cultures, especially Calgary’s immigrants and the local LGBTQ community. Christina is currently a third-year student completing her BDes in Photography at AUArts, where she recently received the 2021 Self-Directed Research Scholarship. She is a member of the Exposure Studio 2.0 program, as well as the Curatorial Resident at The New Gallery, where she is working on a curatorial project that considers the solidarity between and within racialized communities that has manifested in Calgary/ Mohkinstsis.

05 - Stephanie One Spot, Tangled

Instagram: @S.O.S_Designs001

01 – Artist Statement

This piece is representative of the lingering responsibilities that we have to the land and the urgency of connection through our own spirit. Before contact with the west, Stories and Traditions from my Dine Nation have been linked to the land and we have always known that everything has agency. Everything is alive and we must nurture the earth for future generations. After contact, due to intergenerational trauma, most of us have lost the essence of agency and that connection through spirit and land. This is represented through the shadows and figures that dance around in-between the light that mimic the forms and entities that have been lost. There’s a silent echo of that spirituality which is fluid and calming. I used 2 colour’s, white and blue because blue represents water, land and air and is our life carriers. White represents spirits, animals and holy entities. Having this sculpture take up space and have presence in that space holds value that I want to acknowledge that my place, dis placement and reconnection back to my stories and lore’s are important to have a part of me every day.

02 – Artist Bio

Stephanie One Spot is an emerging Indigenous Artist from the Sarcee (Tsuu Tina) First Nation. She is a fourth-year student at the Alberta University of the Arts.

06 - Jose Macasinag, Florae

07 - Mantis Mei, White Space

Instagram: @mantismei

Discogs: @mantismei

Instagram: @jose_macasinag_

01 – Artist Statement

Florae is an interactive installation that utilizes Paper Craft sculptures and photoresists. Viewers are encouraged to play with the sculptures by waving their hands above them or blocking out the light to play musical notes.

I developed this installation having in mind a need for reconnection with nature. But also, by being mindful of the effects we can contribute to the environment. All plants have a way of communicating with each other and responding to stress, either through chemicals or electrical signals (“Do Plants Feel Pain” 80). Plants work on a different timescale to be comprehended, too fast and ultrasonic for us to hear and visually too slow to be observed to move independently (with certain exceptions). The behavior of plants inspired me to build a soundscape, where we viewers may physically hear the effects of their disturbances in specific environments.

This brings up the question of what our role is in this ecosystem, do the “plants” play music to welcome a symbiotic relationship? Or are the tonal sounds a preventative measure to ward off predators?

Hamilton, Adam, and Justin McBrayer. “Do Plants Feel Pain?” Disputatio (Lisbon, Portugal), vol. 12, no. 56, 2020, pp. 71–98, https://doi.org/10.2478/disp-2020-0003.

02 – Artist Bio

Jose Macasinag is a new media artist currently based in Mohkinstsis (Calgary). He is also in his third year attending Alberta University of the Arts, for a BFA in Media Arts and Digital Technologies (Interactivity).

01 - Artist Statement

White Space explores the transactional and disposable nature of the graphic design world, especially towards People of Colour. On demand, the body of the receipt printer spits out a portion of the essay written on this topic along with a QR code that links to a digital version of the writing for ease of accessibility.

02 - Artist Bio

Mantis plays with a growing array of mediums from textiles to interactive electronics as a part of their practice. They hope to displace the spectator while keeping a certain kind of charm. Mantis is also afraid of heights.

08 - Olum Omala, Knot new 1

Instagram: @ohl00m

01 - Artist Statement

Lines cling to one another stretching out completely flat.A empty but softer approach to being a box.Tense with anticipation to be revive after being sent it spreads itself thin. Cloth is fragile and cannot be contained within a box, or even with the gift itself.. Completely dependent on each Row and column the yarn is frail and cannot cover itself, it has worn itself out. Unable cant hold anything new or travel long with having lost most of itself.

02 - Artist Bio

My work is a hyper-critical personal narrative based mostly from memories. How I was taught to be and how I am now. I fill the gap of time between the past and present with my own delusion. Thoughts of what should have been or what could have happened, I know that once something happens it becomes more of an obscure event as you replay or imagine it but I’d like to feel it.