Fire Season
An exhibition of regional artists reflecting on the past, present, and future ways we understand wildfire in BC. The exhibition will include a book release event with READ Bookstore for the Fire Season publications.
Location
On Campus
Zone 4 (Level 1, next to Media Resources)
Contact
Amory Abbott | aabbott@ecuad.caOpen to Public?
Yes
In 2019, Amory Abbott and Liz Toohey-Wiese began discussing the idea of creating an artist book that would center around the topic of wildfires, and invite contributing artists, writers, researchers, and community members who had been impacted by wildfire to contribute their insights on how to make sense of the increased prevalence and severity of wildfire on the BC landscape.
Though thoroughly grounded in Western Canada and the US, artists from across the globe have contributed to the first two volumes of Fire Season, from Alaska to California, South Africa to England. The exhibition at Emily Carr will be more local, featuring work from 9 BC-based artists in mediums varying from written word to weaving, historical marketing campaigns to documentary film; and paintings, charcoal drawings and photography.
Toohey-Wiese believes that artists can have important roles in relation to wildfires.
“The information being shared by scientists and researchers I talk to is often quite abstract. It is difficult to understand the impacts of these fires in numbers of hectares burnt, degrees of climate warming, millions of dollars spent on fire fighting. I believe art can be a form of storytelling about wildfire that will be more easily communicated to the public. Often these artists are reflecting on their personal experience with fire, and exploring the metaphor of wildfire and how it touches on other aspects of their lives.”
Artist and co-curator Amory Abbott also recognizes that this project may have different impacts in rural and urban spaces. “In cities, wildfires are often a remote concept marked by smoky skies and heat warnings. Among small communities in the interior of BC, wildfire is an annual threat that pervades the lives, livelihood, and economy of those communities. An exhibition like this can encourage further empathy and understanding for the other regions of our province, and allows us to share the work of our contributors with a community that has experienced wildfire in manifest forms, fromregions deeply connected to forests and their management.”
Fire Season features the work of: Amory Abbott, Ana Diab, Kerri Flannigan, Eli Hirtle, Erick Jantzen, Kay Penney, Andreas Rutkauskas, Liz Toohey -Wiese, and Emily Wilson.
Opening: November 4, 6pm - 9pm