Artists in Canada are actively making work in response to concerns about land, water,
and energy. Learn more about their powerful artwork in an engaging exhibition tour of
Ground Signals on Wednesday, October 4 from 7 to 8:30pm at Surrey Art Gallery, led by
co-curators Roxanne Charles and Jordan Strom. Admission is free.
From paintings, audio recordings, sculpture, and videos that engage with colonial
histories to the legacies of extractive economies, the multisensory artwork in Ground
Signals invites response. As you exchange stories for energy, travel back in time to
Tahltan territory, or listen to spoken word poetry while contemplating a painting, youre
challenged to reconsider your relationship to the places you live, work, play, and
recreate. Strom and Charles will share behind-the- scenes information on the thirteen
artists and artwork and draw out connections between the works. Both regular tour
participants and first-time Gallery visitors are encouraged to ask questions and share
their responses to the art. No need for an art degree”this casual and informal tour is
welcome to all.
About Ground Signals
Paintings and picturesque photographs of Canadas rugged wilderness and untouched
nature continue to permeate our media and underwrite our national identity. Yet the
Canadian landscape has rarely ever been untouched. The land has long been inhabited.
There have been many centuries of cultural production by Indigenous Peoples that
represent the land and the connection between nature and human experience in very
different ways from the traditions encompassed within Western landscape art. During
recent decades, new generations of artists working in Canada have drawn from a wealth
of other non-Western practices and developed new forms of media to represent the land
beyond the romantic, expressionistic styles and pictorial forms that have become so
familiar. These artists invite us to consider our own presumptions and relationship to the
places around us”beyond seeing them as scenic or banal, as sources of investment
and industry, or as sites of recreation.
Building on several recent Surrey Art Gallery exhibitions that have addressed
landscape, ecology, territory, and mapping, Ground Signals challenges visitors to listen
and experience the land in fresh and compelling ways through a combination of sounds
and images.
Artists: Ruth Beer, Roxanne Charles, Marie Ct, Lindsay Dobbin, Richard Fung,
Brandon Gabriel and Ostwelve, Farheen HaQ, Peter Morin, Valrie d. Walker and Bobbi
L. Kozinuk, Charlene Vickers and Cathy Busby
Surrey Art Gallery gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the City of Surrey,
BC Arts Council and the Province of British Columbia, Canada Council for the Arts, and
the Surrey Art Gallery Association.
Surrey Art Gallery is located at 13750-88 Avenue, Surrey, BC, Canada. 604-501- 5566 |
www.surrey.ca/artgallery
HOURS Tues-Thur 9am-9pm | Fri 9am-5pm | Sat 10am-5pm | Sun 12-5pm | Closed
Mondays and holidays.