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Syrus Marcus Ware | 2068: Touch Change

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Portrait Of Queen Tite Smware 2016 Wide 1
(Image: Activist Portrait

Both an archive and a speculation, set 50 years in the future, this new exhibition is curated by alumna Vanessa Kwan.

When

Nov 1, 2018 – Dec 15, 2018

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grunt gallery | 116-350 E 2nd Ave

Opening Reception | Thursday, November 1, 7:00-10:00pm

Curated by ECU alum Vanessa Kwan, the exhibition 2068: Touch Change is both an archive and a speculation. Beginning 50 years in the future, this new exhibition by Toronto-based artist and activist Syrus Marcus Ware proposes an archive whose "holdings" act as a meeting ground for artists and activists across time and space.

The exhibition has three main components: a series of large-scale graphite portraits drawn on paper and directly on the walls, a speculative text and a disseminated printed work that documents materials gathered and accessed in the artists’ research process. The portraits - in many ways the centrepiece of the exhibition - are created through a complex process of visiting and revisiting images and interviews with historic and present-day BIPOC (Black, Indigenous or People of Colour) activist communities.

Ware’s investment in the archive is overlaid with a parallel interest in forms of speculative fiction, and he speaks eloquently about how he envisions his research and installations as ways of creating a space where activists and artists of different generations are brought together. Ware, like Butler, invites us to consider change as a constant, and hope as an ever-expanding network of relations.

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About Vanessa Kwan

Vanessa Kwan is an artist and curator with a focus on collaborative, site-specific and community-engaged practices, currently based in Vancouver Canada. She graduated from Emily Carr University, Bachelor of Media Arts in 2004. At grunt gallery, she manages residencies, exhibitions and special projects and is also curator/ producer at Other Sights for Artists’ Projects, an artist-run organization that curates and produces artworks for the public realm. She is a founding member of the arts collective Norma who was honoured with a City of Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award for public art in 2012. She regularly writes and publishes on art and culture, and has recently led curated projects at venues across the Pacific Rim (Vancouver, Seoul, and Sydney) exploring artist-led creative exchange. Upcoming projects also include SPEAKER A, a permanent sound installation (with Theatre Replacement) and Houseplanters, a series of public sculptures commissioned by the City of Vancouver.