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Eco-tastic
The art world is abuzz with eco-friendly, small-footprint art. From Santa Fe to our own little urban oasis, enviro-art is where it’s at.
One such green group at the fore is Ecotecture, a charitable organization working out of the Deleon White Gallery space (the gallery that brought you crazy films and Microsoft fantasies). Ecotecture’s mandate states that they “offer a public forum to those working through questions of sustainability and facilitate the exhibition of contemporary fine art works that explore relevant themes from a critical standpoint.” They seek to investigate the complex and fraught relationship we have with our environment by provoking interaction within the community: as well as coordinating gallery shows, Ecotecture’s group of young curators (Colin Kent, Mary Porter, Joanna Sheridan, and Emmett Zeifman) organize screenings, parties, and charettes to provide opportunities for discussion.
Their latest contribution to the raging enviro back-and-forth is the group show DISINTEGRATION DISINTEGRATION. On a very surface level this exhibition of break-out and mid-career artists deals with the degradation of the environment—there’s a decomposing wall of wheatgrass, an evaporating installation, and a faux tree—but it also investigates the current state of our society in which boundaries become more and more unclear. Whether it’s gender, politics, or ethnicity, it has become difficult to clearly delineate specific categories and keep them separate.
In this vein, Lauren Nurse’s Absence vs. Presence (half of the installation pictured above), reminds us that we live with endangered environmental objects (Icebergs) every day, and simultaneously notes how our need to consume, while its purpose may be to sustain us, is actually a destructive act.
The exhibit, opening this Thursday, will provide a new forum to discuss our eco concerns with peers and delve into alternate ways of expressing our environmental angst. Combine that with some mild revelry, and the night is sure to be a fascinating one.
DISINTEGRATION DISINTEGRATION runs June 27–July 26 at Deleon White Gallery (1139 College Street West, one block west of Dufferin). The opening is this Thursday at 7 p.m.
Photo courtesy of Ecotecture Canada