The pictures: Notes I took during my talk with the gallery’s curators

Recently, in my partnership with the Polygon, I have been able to meet two of the gallery’s curators, one who also is the director. Both were rather enlightening experiences. On my second shift at the gallery, I was able to get a personal tour (with my supervisor) of the new exhibition the gallery is mounting to coincide with the opening of their new space. The purpose of this tour was to give me a better sense of what the exhibition was all about, so as to help me write about it my talking points (my project). It was a bit funny how he repeated how the Polygon (when it was known as Presentation House Gallery), always put on high caliber exhibitions. I would generally agree (from the many times I’ve gone to Presentation House in the past). I guess it was just funny to hear someone having to say that, to justify the gallery (I suppose some of that happened to get this new space too). It was nice to get to walk around the gallery though and hear how a curator made their decisions on how to curate various works, their reasons for including them, and how they fit within the exhibition’s theme. It was definitely helpful to myself to hear about the exhibition in this way for my project. Interestingly though, apparently, much of the reasoning behind the exhibition lay in accessibility; as they are opening in a brand new, shiny space, they wanted to make sure the space, and what it exhibited, would be relatable for North Vancouverites. The director said something along the lines that he wants people to see the artworks (many made in North Vancouver) and see places they have seen themselves. I thought it very good that a gallery did want to be accessible, in this case, to people who may not always look at art, but also interesting to hear an exhibition that included many other complex ideas (e.g. First Nations land claims) being boiled down to one simple concept; it was interesting to hear this from a “high-caliber” institution. Not that it is bad thing, just interesting.

My talk with the other curator came a few shifts afterward. I was asking my supervisor if there was any information I could access about the gallery’s history, mandate, etc. (for the poster assignment). As I was talking about this, the gallery’s other curator was walking around at the same time and politely interjected: “I have a pretty good institutional memory; are you Brandon?” And we introduced ourselves to each other. I asked if I would be able to talk to her about the gallery’s history and she agreed, which was very kind of her to give her time to. We sat down in her office and I explained the nature of the assignment to her and she began to talk. Fortunately, she had a lot to say (not that I doubted that she would) and we ended up having a nice chat for what felt like an hour at least. I knew a bit about the different projects that Presentation House/Polygon had done in the past, but hearing about them from her was very informative. She was generous enough to show me many of their publications (and let me use one for my research) and literally almost went through everything there was to go through (mandate-wise at least). We talked a bit about my work at the Belkin Gallery (work very similar to what I’m doing now) and about my practice (we shared an interest in physical photographs, and though I worried about not catching up with digital technology, she suggested that that may be an interest in materiality, something I hadn’t thought of before).

All in all, both very interesting conversations to have. And fun fact, my shift talking to the other curator ended with someone playing this as they left: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ImvYEq1GTs

Ashita Ga Aru Sa….