KWAG SOS: A Story of Survival
Forging presence is the root of survivance. Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor tells us that “an act of survivance is Indigenous self-expression in any medium that tells a story about our active presence in the world now.” With this in mind, I present to you the Kitchener – Waterloo Art Gallery’s (KWAG) latest curatorial endeavour, SOS: A Story of Survival, Part I – The Image. This first iteration features six artists whose mediums range from tapestries to paintings to installations as well as photographic prints and video works.
I admit, my family has cultural ties to an outport community called Fogo Island in Ktaqmkuk (Newfoundland and Labrador). As a result, I have become slightly biased towards curators and artists who have passed through the Fogo Island Arts organization. Darryn Doull, who joined KWAG as curator in August 2021, was a recipient of the inaugural Hnatyshyn Foundation – Fogo Island Arts Young Curator Residency in 2014. As a result, my visit to KWAG was as much a personal desire as it was an academic one.
At the time of our visit, a few friends and I were the only visitors in the exhibit. I appreciated the chance this gave us to roam the space freely and to share our astonishment aloud. Artists Pardiss Amerian, James Gardner, Paula McLean, Caroline Monnet, Thao Nguyen Phan, and Cecilia Vicuña present a narrative of survival that is not of a single person or community, instead their works emphasize the survival of all the matter which makes up our world.
In the midst of ongoing precarity across the globe, “survival is not only a philosophical question but a reality of daily life” writes Doull in his curatorial statement. In order to address both the notion of survival and the experience of surviving, Doull has coordinated an exhibition structure of three parts. Following Part I – The Image, Part II – The Body will occur in 2023 and Part III – The Planet will conclude the project in 2024.
In a brief statement about his intentions as a curator Doull explains his search for “otherwise: other ways of thinking about an exhibition schedule, other ways of responding to works held in a collection, […] to think otherwise does not mean to add something to a pre-existing structure.” By shaping SOS into a trilogy, Doull has diverged from the canons of historical art collecting and modes of presentation. Instead KWAG has affirmed that other literacies such as decolonizing museum practices and ways of organizing which dismantle racism rather than putting it on display — are becoming the most prosperous and powerful approach to serving our communities.
SOS: A Story of Survival, Part I – The Image will remain open until January 22, 2023.
For more information please visit https://kwag.ca/content/sos-story-survival-part-i-image
This post was written in October 2022.
