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In our Main GalleryUPCOMING in JANUARY:
Opening Reception: Friday January 13th, 2011 The Boilermakers and Ironworkers Union brings together the work of artists Camille Turner and Rick Hill, curated by Jennifer LaFontaine. Growing up in the family of boilermakers and ironworkers respectively, both Camille and Rick have carved out their own life paths from these working families to becoming working artists. Both draw on their family experiences and infuse these identities into their artistic practices. When she was nine years old, Camille came to Canada with her mother and sister to live with her father. They settled in Hamilton, where her father, a boilermaker, made his living in the steel industry.Hometown Queen is a series of staged photographs of Miss Canadiana, in full-colour, posing in front of panoramic sepia-toned views of Hamilton's steel mills. Through her hallmark use of humour and irony, she both pays homage and explores her contradictory relationship to her hometown. Also presented in this exhibition is Sankta Barbara, a video work collaboratively created by Camille Turner in collaboration with composer Paulo C. Chagas. The work was created in 2003 during Interaktions-Labor, a residency in an abandoned coalmine in Germany. It draws on the energy of Shango, an African diety who is syncretized with Sankta Barbara, to form a meditation on the unseen and unacknowledged work performed by men in the mine each day. As Native artist Rick Hill says in his digital story Decisive Moments, "I didn't hear about the Creation story, the Great Law or any of that. All I heard about was being an ironworker. I thought that was my destiny." He recounts his path from ironworker to artist, and the ripple effect it had through his family. His large collection of black and white photographs documents the lives of ironworkers, "to help others see the lives of my heroes as I saw them." The photos and video pieces selected for this exhibit include ironworkers, family, photographers and craftspeople who taught Rick about art, how it shaped his own sense of self, and where his art has evolved from these inspirations. NEW EXHIBITION: HAMMERING AWAY: ERASURE & ACTION IN HAMILTON
The Workers Arts & Heritage presents a unique exhibition focusing on the diverse range of identities, narratives and perspectives active in the city of Hamilton, ON. Taking conceptual cues from the work of M.Christine Boyer, specifically her notion of totalities and matrices - the master narratives and tropes which can define a city and the complex pluralities which undermine these narratives -- the exhibition attempts to deconstruct, and explore the ways in which these often competing identities and stories play out in a variety of communities in Hamilton.
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Entrance: In our West Gallery: In our East Gallery: In our Second Floor Gallery: In our Community Gallery: |
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