Diane Borsato earned an MFA at Concordia University, and an MA in Performance Studies at New York University. In previous pieces she has slept with cake, boiled sentimental objects, danced with strangers, squeezed expensive pastries, taken a mannequin to a military prom, and broken a world record. Recent projects include: HOW TO MAKE A SCULPTURE IN AN EMERGENCY at Skol, The Self Love Project at La Centrale, and the Mannequin Impossible performance at Museopathy/Empathology in Kingston. This year she will be presenting The Twitching Project at the Musée du Québec and will be the artist in residence at Villa Arson in Nice, France.
Colleen Brown, born in Guelph, Ontario, slowly moved west and is now living in Vancouver. In an earlier rendition of herself Colleen received her B.A. Psyc. and a diploma in Electrophysiology. Later, she received a B.F.A. from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Her work has been exhibited in British Columbia and Quebec.
Kirsten Forkert is a Vancouver-based artist with works in installation, performance and text. She has presented her work across Canada. Her practice, which is often site-specific, investigates relationships between publics and larger social and economic structures as they play out in urban space. Often engaging audience participation, her work explores alternative ideas of community.
John Marriott is a Vancouver-born artist who lives and works in Toronto. Since 1995 he has been active as a writer, curator, and artist working in video, installation, performance and urban interventions. His works have been seen in publications, exhibitions and screenings nationally and internationally. In 1996 his sculptural installations were presented in a solo exhibition at the Powerplant Contemporary Art Gallery in Toronto, and most recently his video Vegetative States (done in collaboration with Steve Reinke) screened at the International Festival of Film and Video in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Norma is a Vancouver based collective. The collective members are Vanessa Kwan, Diana Lopez-Soto, Josh Neelands, Christy Nyiri, Pietro Sammarco, Erica Stocking, and Kara Uzelman. All members of Norma are undergraduates of Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design (now Emily Carr University) and all have individual practices. Norma’s work often deals with aspects of group identity and draws from diverse sources, including visual and performance art histories, popular culture, and social behaviour. Norma’s performance, installation, and text works have been exhibited/performed in Vancouver at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Access Gallery, LIVE Biennial of Performance Art, the PuSH Festival, grunt gallery, Front Magazine, and in a 2003 public project at Artspeak entitled Expect Delays.
Christy Thompson is a sculptor and installation artist living in Toronto. Recent exhibitions include toggle wand at Mercer Union (Toronto), House Guests at The Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto) and Starlings & Caverns at The Art Gallery of Windsor (Windsor). She is currently (2003) the Interim Director of Programming at YYZ Artists’ Outlet in Toronto.
Sarah White is an interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in Vancouver. She received her BFA from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 2003. A recipient of the Helen Pitt Award, White currently (2003) sits as elected student representative to the ECIAD Board of Governors and is an active member of the Emily Carr Students’ Union. Themes of vulnerability, strength, proper decorum and institutionalization inform her work.
DIANE BORSATO, COLLEEN BROWN, RACHEL ECHENBERG, KIRSTEN FORKERT, JOHN MARRIOTT, NORMA, CHRISTY THOMPSON, SARAH WHITE
April 1–May 30, 2003
Curated by Kathleen Ritter
The city of Vancouver is characterized by its constantly shifting infrastructure and accelerated development. Pedestrian routes change, pristine parks are developed long before people inhabit them, up-scale residential developments are placed on the periphery of red-light districts that are awaiting gentrification, and buildings are constructed further into the inlets and waterways that divide the city’s regions. Alongside this, one notes that the codes of behaviour in social and urban space in this city are much more restricted and surveilled than in other locales. The ranges of acceptable activities in public space are limited. Private security initiatives (Gastown security guards, Vancouver’s Downtown Ambassadors) are employed to patrol the streets and act as the ‘eyes and ears’ for the police. And unlike other cities, there are few urban spaces where groups of people can gather, protest or create a public forum. In light of these characteristics, artists face a challenge to create work in the streets of Vancouver that successfully negotiates the regulation of public space and yet, not go unnoticed or be too easily dismissed. These challenges, however, create an opportunity for work to hold greater meaning and significance in a city where these issues continue to be relevant.
Expect Delays is a series of off-site projects organized by Artspeak that take place in locations throughout the city of Vancouver in April and May of 2003. Eight artists from across Canada have been invited to create public infiltration works that use modest engagements in daily life to critically investigate the social conventions, pedestrian movement and regulation of public space. Using strategies of humour, unpredictability and gestures of generosity, these artists propose alternative ways to view the city and negotiate public space. Rooted in the tradition of intervention/performance/infiltration-based practice, Expect Delays is intended to expand our definitions of public art as not simply the act of situating art in public spaces, but the process by which art and ideas enter public consciousness.
Expect Delays is supported by The Canada Council for the Arts through the Inter Arts Program and the British Columbia Arts Council. Community partners for Expect Delays include the Ramada Limited Downtown Vancouver, the Fine Arts and Music Division of the Vancouver Public Library, the Roundhouse Community Centre, Video In, Blake’s Bistro and Access Artist Run Centre.
Artist Talk/Reception
SARAH WHITE, NORMA
May 15, 2003
Access Gallery is pleased to host the artist talk of Sarah White and the members of Norma as they discuss their projects for Expect Delays: Monologues for public/Private Spaces and Dog Day Afternoon, respectively. Expect Delays is a series of off-site projects organized by Artspeak and supported by The Canada Council for the Arts and the British Columbia Arts Council.