During these COVID times, the Comox Valley Art Gallery is presenting two art projects that are viewed from the outdoors.
“These projects bring a special glow to the downtown,” said CVAG program director Angela Somerset. “They illuminate the evening, providing an outward facing soundscape and art experience that doesn’t require entering a gallery.
“Since the start of the pandemic, we are always looking for new ways to safely offer culture to our audiences.”
A Letter From the Ocean is an 11-minute looped video that plays on a large screen in CVAG’s southern window facing Duncan Avenue. It can be viewed from the CVAG plaza between 6 and 9 p.m. every evening until March 23.
The video performance is created by Imago Theatre, a Montreal-based theatre company. One of the actors is Clea Minaker, who originally comes from the Comox Valley. The other actor is Warona Setshwaelo, and the playwright is Caridad Svich.
OFFSITE_ONSITE is an ongoing creative residency that brings together the work of artists and curators located in the Comox Valley, Sweden and Austria.
It is both a virtual and onsite collaboration between Syrian artist Nisrine Boukhari, now residing in Austria, local artist Shelley Vanderbyl, Syrian curator Abir Boukhari, now residing in Sweden, and CVAG curators Somerset and Denise Lawson.
Ongoing installation projects from OFFSITE_ONSITE are visible from 6th Street in the lower level windows of CVAG.
CVAG’s interior is open to the public Thursday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The gallery’s Shop:Made is now showcasing work by the late George Sawchuk, an artist well known for the large outdoor gallery he created in the forests of Fanny Bay.
The gallery’s interior exhibition spaces are closed while the next interactive multi-media exhibition, Visible Labour, is being installed inside and outside the gallery. Visible Labour, featuring the work of artists Deb Dumka, Claire Sanford, Kristin Nelson and Connie Michele Morey, will open to the public March 25.
For more details about activities at CVAG, visit www.comoxvalleyartgallery.com