Richmond Art Gallery's (RAG) upcoming exhibition will offer a sneak peek into how rituals and practices help humans cope in an uncertain world.
The group exhibition, titled "It begins with knowing and not knowing," will kick off RAG's summer season and run from July 20 to Sept. 29.
The exhibition will showcase work by Rebecca Bair, Xinwei Che, Patrick Cruz, Zoë Kreye, Ogheneofegor Obuwoma, Michelle Sound and Ximena Velázquez (DJ La PosmoBaby), as the artists aim to rebuild community and regain optimism in a world "rife with injustice, pain and uncertainty," reads RAG's media release.
A wide variety of artworks, including cyanotypes, sculptures, videos, paintings and performances will be available.
“The exhibition presents artists’ explorations of spirituality, everything from alternative forms of healing to personal rituals and gestures of care,” said curator Zoë Chan.
“Their engagement with these practices, in tandem with their longing to also reach beyond themselves, are at the heart of this project."
Chan said she borrowed the title of the exhibition from Deborah Levy as she resonated with the "open-ended sentiment, embodying the exhilarating, yet terrifying, feeling of being on the precipice of venturing on new creative and personal journeys.”
Artist Rebecca Bair documented her hair-washing rituals using cyanotypes, serving as "coded vernacular legible to other Black folks who share similar hair ablutions."
Xinwei Che's clay vessels that disintegrate slowly serve as a metaphor for geological time and present a way to escape the constraints of capitalism.
Patrick Cruz's large-scale paintings trace back to his pencil sketches from experimenting with past life therapy as he navigated limitations to his identity as a Filipino-Canadian artist using quasi-mystical techniques.
Zoë Kreye, Sobey Award-longlisted artist, created an immersive textile installation evoking entryways into other worlds inspired by her mother's death and the birth of her children.
Ogheneofegor Obuwoma went on a healing process by creating a surreal video based on their difficult experiences at a Catholic boarding school in “an act of resistance to institutional and church violence and the silence and apathy expected of those who live through it.”
Cree and Métis artist Michelle Sound's photographic series highlights acts of care and joy in family and community in the face of colonial trauma by sewing together archival images with colourful beading, caribou tufting, embroidery and porcupine quills.
Finally, inspired by memories of cooking with their great-grandmother, Ximena Velázquez cooks tortillas while disguised in spectacular costumes to pay tribute to "matrilineal knowledge under patriarchy and a dazzling celebration of the artist’s queer identity." The video is part of an ongoing series of performance-based cooking videos.
Exhibition tours and workshops led by the artists will be available from July 20 through Sept. 14. For more information, click here.
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