Open Space artist-run centre kicks off the new year with Chantal Gibson’s How She Read: Confronting the Romance of Empire.
Gibson, a Vancouver-based artist and educator, plunges into school texts and history books with a sewing needle and re-works historical Canadian texts with black thread in order to revise our ideas of history, nationhood, and how we read. Through altered book sculptures that ensnare the texts with braids and thread, redacted texts, and reprints of old children’s readers, Gibson’s work asks us to consider the voices, stories, and bodies that have been erased or excluded from historical narratives and proposes material ways in which we can resist those historical erasures.
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The exhibition launches with a reception on Sunday, Jan. 13, 2019 from 3 to 5 p.m. and runs through Tuesday, Feb. 26. During the same time period, the University of Victoria’s McPherson Library hosts a satellite exhibition featuring Gibson’s work TOME.
Gibson is in residence at Open Space from Feb. 14 to 21, during which time she will participate in numerous events, as well as hold open hours at the gallery.
Thursday, Feb. 14 at 3 p.m.
Reading from How She Read at the University of Victoria’s McPherson Library, Room A003.
Saturday, Feb. 16 at 2 p.m.
Artist talk at Open Space, followed by a panel discussion on decolonization in education and cultural institutions, alongside Victoria-based educators, curators, and artists.
Tuesday, Feb. 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Book launch and reading from Gibson’s forthcoming book of poetry, How She Read, at Open Space.
c.vanreeuwyk@blackpress.ca
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