about
curators statement
Genevieve Robertson & Maggie Shirley
Overburden is the topsoil and vegetation that is removed before mining takes place. It also references our earth’s current condition and the psychological burden that many people experience in the face of climate and other ecological changes.
Overburden brings together a group of artists whose shared concerns address geology and its relationship to shifting climate patterns and resource extraction, in both a regional and global context. Artists respond to mining histories in the Kootenay area, arctic ice melt that is uncovering paleontological data, mining reclamation practices, Indigenous sovereignty and glacial seismic events. While some artists bear witness to harmful extraction practices and an ever more unstable world, others seek to find caring, embodied and imaginative ways to come into relationship with the geologic material under our feet and interwoven into our everyday.
In an installation using moose hide and projection Tsēmā Igharas explores the idea of reclamation through the lens of her Tāltān culture in the face of destructive extraction practices.
Carol Wallace imagines a three-dimensional geologic map - and takes viewers inside of geologic imagery - using fabric and photographic projections.
Keith Langergraber recreates mining structures in the Kootenay region to reflect on regional ecologies and histories, speculative futures and climate change.
Sinixt tribal member Patti Bailey, qʷn̓qʷin̓x̌n̓, uses plant material sourced from the Upper Columbia Basin landscape to create traditional and contemporary weavings.
Questioning collective ideals of the Arctic and working to demystify climate research, Tara Nicholson documents climatology outposts in Canada, Greenland and Russia.
Using fibre and installation, Sarah Nance works within the chasm between geologic processes and human experience, locating their entanglements in order to explore a layered perception of place.
Two works by Randy Lee Cutler explore the presence of minerals in our daily environments and their profound but often unacknowledged effect on our experiences and activities.
Gabriela Escobar Ari photographs the biography of a Bolivian landscape revealing mining activities and uncovering associated attitudes and values towards natural resources.
Jim Holyoak & Darren Fleet collaborate on a series of comics that address deep time and climate change through storytelling from the perspective of trilobites.
Asinnajaq offers a score inspired by the fluxus movement and performed by her own body and a pile of rocks, responding to the feeling of burden.
Through these artistic inquiries, the artists included in Overburden both disrupt and mimic methods of scientific research, and explore embodied, performative and material responses. In collecting these works together in these chaotic times, viewers may reflect on questions such as: what are the ways in which the earth is pushing back, disintegrating and metamorphosing in response to our actions? What role might artists play in articulating our anthropocentric paradigm and how can we begin to shift our thinking to one in which interdependence and care are central?
credits
Overburden is a co-production between Kootenay Gallery of Art (Castlegar) and Oxygen Art Centre (Nelson).
Val Field, Kootenay Gallery of Art Executive Director
Julia Prudhomme, Oxygen Art Centre Executive Director
Maggie Shirley, Kootenay Gallery of Art Curator
Genevieve Robertson, Guest Curator for Oxygen Art Centre
Genevieve Robertson, Exhibition Essay
Deanna Peters/Mutable Subject, Web Design
Thomas Nowaczynski, Photographs (unless otherwise credited)
Keiko Lee-Hem, Catalogue Design
The Kootenay Gallery of Art is a principal gallery for the visual arts within the West Kootenay region of British Columbia. Located in Castlegar, the Gallery is committed to include, through exhibitions and programming, a diversity of artists and art forms that enrich, challenge and educate the audience.
We're grateful for financial support from the BC Arts Council, BC Gaming, City of Castlegar and other funders.
Located in the town of Nelson, Oxygen Art Centre is an integral and long-standing cultural hub for artists of all disciplines (including youth) in the West Kootenays and Columbia Basin. We provide meaningful professional development opportunities to local artists and brings artists of national and international repute into our communities to produce new work.
Oxygen is grateful for the financial support we receive from:
Canada Council for the Arts
BC Arts Council
BC Gaming
Province of BC
Government of Canada
Vancouver Foundation
Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance
Columbia Basin Trust
Osprey Community Foundation
United Way
Nelson Lions Club
Nelson and District Credit Union
Funding for this exhibition was generously provided by:
Canada Council for the Arts
Columbia Kootenay Cultural Alliance
BC Arts Council
Columbia Basin Trust Community Initiatives and Affected Areas Program
Teck
Columbia Power Corporation
Oxygen Art Centre and Kootenay Gallery of Art are grateful for this support.
The galleries would also like to thank the artists who participated in the exhibition and programming, and all our members, donors, board members and volunteers.
Kootenay Gallery of Art
120 Heritage Way
Castlegar, BC V1N 4M5
kootenaygallery[dot]telus.net
250-365-3337
Oxygen Art Centre
#3-320 Vernon St. (alley entrance)
Nelson, B.C. V1L4E4
info[dot]oxygenartcentre.org
250-352-6322
We acknowledge with gratitude that our art spaces are located on the unceded traditional territory of the sn̓ʕay̓ckstx (Sinixt Arrow Lakes), Sylix (Okanagan Nation Alliance) and Ktunaxa (specifically Yaqan Nukij Lower Kootenay Band peoples). We recognize the enduring presence of First Nations people on these lands and that they are home to Métis and many diverse Indigenous persons.