The Comox Valley Art Gallery will host an art opening, artist talk and welcoming for France Trépanier’s exhibition “Offerings/Offrandes” on Friday, Oct. 13, at 7 p.m.
The events are free and everyone is welcome to attend. The gallery is located at 580 Duncan Avenue in downtown Courtenay.
The reception will also honour and acknowledge the artists, K’omoks elders and others who worked on the research, production and installation of artwork at the new North Island Hospital in Comox Valley.
“Offerings/Offrandes” is a multi-media installation that integrates contemporary and traditional elements to explore the practice of offering across cultures. The installation will include the work of local artist collaborators Medwyn McConachy, Monica McKean, and Anita Lawrence.
The project will also be informed by cultural knowledge-sharing with K’omoks elder Mary Everson and her son, renowned artist Andy Everson.
Trépanier is an artist, researcher, curator and Indigenous arts educator, with both Kanien’keha:ka and French ancestry. Her work “Offerings / Offrandes” was originally conceived at the Vast et Vague artist run centre in Quebec and has been shown at diverse galleries across Canada.
An ongoing aspect of “Offerings / Offrandes” is the associated website that Trépanier desbribes as a receptacle and guardian of images and sounds inspired by the rituals associated with giving/offering. The public is invited to contribute to this collective artwork at www.offerings-offrandes.com.
The installation at CVAG will run from Oct. 14 to Nov. 18.
The Oct. 13 reception will also celebrate the artwork installed at the new North Island Hospital in Comox Valley.
CVAG conceived and produced the first stage of a major art project for the new hospital. The work includes images of traditional K’omoks healing plants and lands on the wall of hospital’s Gathering Place, and large-scale photographs of indigenous cultural practices artworks and landscapes in the Central Registration Area.
“This hospital work is an extension of the “MAP: Make / Art / Place” curatorial program presented at CVAG in the summer and fall of 2016,” said CVAG curator Angela Somerset. “It represents documentation and witness practices imbedded in the the traditional K’omoks culture and unceded territory.”
Artists and collaborators in the hospital’s art project include K’omoks elder Barb Whyte, photographer Alun Macanulty, ceramicist Gordon Hutchens, and students, educators and parents at Queneesh Elementary school.
To find out more about the upcoming exhibition or the hospital art project, visit www.comoxvalleyartgallery.com or call (250) 338-6211.