Curator, Sites of Assembly

Co-curated with Lorna Brown, The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC, June 23-August 13, 2017. 

Sites of Assembly features photographic works from the Belkin’s permanent collection, the private collection of John O’Brian and the research archive of Marcia Crosby. Focusing on practices of photography as simultaneously art and document, the exhibition is ordered around several themes: propositions for the use of public space, whether through buildings, artworks or social activities; the surveillance of the public and performances for the camera; and the way that photographic records create potential histories for Vancouver.

The photograph – as an encounter between the photographer and the photographed – offers a way to re-read the past as unfinished, in flux and not yet normative, and to imagine a future that might produce a different set of relations between social subjects.

A publication accompanies the exhibition with writing by Gabrielle Moser and Lorna Brown.

The Belkin’s exhibitions and publications are made possible with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council, and our Belkin Curator’s Forum members. We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the Morris and Helen Belkin Foundation, the Canada Council for the Arts Acquisition Assistance Program and the individuals who donate works of art to our collection. New initiatives to animate the Outdoor Art Collection are made possible with the support of the Province of British Columbia | Canada 150 Fund. We are grateful to John O’Brian and Marcia Crosby for their generous loan of works from their collections.

Public Programming:

Opening Reception with talks and tours of the Outdoor Art Collection
Thursday, June 29, 2017, 6–9 pm

Including opening remarks by curators Lorna Brown and Gabrielle Moser, Dr. John O’Brian, Dr. Marcia Crosby, and a tour of the Outdoor Art Collection with Naomi Sawada.