Brock art show goes beyond gallery
It’s a gallery show where the whole building becomes the gallery.
On Wednesday, about 15 students from Brock University’s advanced arts practices course will turn the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts into an interactive exhibition in which the work responds with the space and environment around it.
Whether that’s a hallway, lobby or storage closet.
For visual arts teacher Donna Akrey, it’s about getting her students to think beyond the usual gallery walls.
“My job is to kind of create a situation for them to make the best work they can in different situations,” she says. “In this situation, instead of having a show in a traditional white cube gallery space, their problem solving is to adapt their work to a space that’s not a gallery.
“How does that change the work? How do we direct the people? Do we begin to think about the building? It helps with their research … it pushes them beyond the maybe even elitist idea of just a gallery.”
The free show, titled Invasive Species, is open to the public from 4 p. m. to 9 p. m. Wednesday. Maps will be provided to visitors to navigate
the downtown facility.
“It makes the person going to look at the work a little bit more active than passive. Even as an artist, I go to galleries and kind of just walk through. I don’t really engage. This is a one- night, couple hours of fullon engagement.”
The work will explore themes of architecture, space and regionality, as it blends in and in some cases personifies the landscape around it. The show marks the mid- year point for students, and could be a preview for a similar exhibition proposed for downtown St. Catharines in April.
“The work doesn’t change so much, but they have to find a place and be responsible for where that work might fit in with that.”