New Director/Curators Kim Nguyen & Shaun Dacey

Field Work

Diane Borsato, Roy Caussy, Brendan Fernandes, Hannah Jickling, Will Kwan

Guest curated by Shaun Dacey

26 June – 24 July 2010

Opening Reception: Friday 25 June 2010 8pm

Artist Talk by Brendan Fernandes: Saturday 26 June 2010 2pm

MFA in Paper Maché event hosted by Hannah Jickling with Vincent Trasov: Thursday 15 July 2010 6 pm

Field Work presents projects by Canadian artists which foster collaboration and exchange beyond studios or exhibition spaces. In search of skills, expertise, and conversation outside of the artistic field, the artists in this exhibition venture into specific locales developing dialogue with amateur scientists, speech coaches, students, and passersby on the street. Presented though various media within the exhibition, each project offers traces of artists’ experiences in the field.

The exhibition will feature three new projects: Diane Borsato organizes a series of field trips between the Vancouver Chapter of Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and the Vancouver Mycology Society; Roy Caussy works with a horse to perform a meaningful action; and Hannah Jickling offers a Vancouver installment of her MFA in Paper Maché project. For his 2009 video performances Foe and Performing Foe, Brendan Fernandes hired a speech coach to teach him to speak English with Swahili, Indian, and Canadian accents, and practiced these intonations with a group of university students.  Will Kwan’s 2004 Learning From Chinatown is a large-scale map of Chinatown in New York City based on maps he had asked people in the neighborhood to draw.

Join us for the following public events occurring throughout the exhibition. Fernandes will discuss his two video works within the frame of his practice Saturday 26 June 2010 at 2pm. Hannah Jickling will develop an installation throughout the duration of the exhibition as part of her MFA in Paper Maché project. Her project will culminate in an evening of paper maché workshops and conversation with Vincent Trasov Thursday July 15, 2010 at 6pm.

This exhibition is curated by Shaun Dacey, a candidate to the Masters Degree in Critical Curatorial Studies at The University of British Columbia, with support from the Killy Foundation and the Audain Endowment for Curatorial Studies through the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at The University of British Columbia.

Access Gallery gratefully acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, City of Vancouver, our members and volunteers. Access is a member of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres.

For more information, please visit www.accessgallery.ca, or contact:

Shaun Dacey

Guest Curator

shaun.dacey@gmail.com

Diane Borsato, The Chinatown Foray, 2009

Terrestrial/Celestial: Artist Talk by Diane Borsato

Sunday May 9th, 2pm
Western Front Lux
303 E8th Avenue, Vancouver, BC

Access Gallery presents an artist talk by Sobey award nominated artist Diane Borsato at the Western Front Lux, 2pm Sunday May 9th. In Vancouver to complete a new project for Access Gallery’s summer exhibition, Field Work (June 25 – July 24), Diane Borsato will discuss her recent relational and interventionist projects. In works such as The Chinatown Foray (2009-10) and Terrestrial/Celestial, the artist collaborated on events with groups of amateur mycologists (mushroom enthusiasts) and astronomers. In the ongoing work Italian Lessons, the artist has been establishing unorthodox language instruction tutorials with physics students, ambulance paramedics, and salsa dancers. Other recent projects include Snakebus, where the artist hired a reptile educator (with live reptiles) to substitute for herself in a performance on a school bus. Borsato’s current practice explores multi-sensory, affective, and relational ways of knowing. Several recent works involve amateur naturalists, plants, fungi and animals. For examples of her work visit: www.dianeborsato.net

Bio:
Diane Borsato completed a BFA at York University (1997), an MFA at Concordia University (2001), and an MA in Performance Studies from the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. (2003). She has exhibited sculpture, video, photography, performance and public interventions at various galleries and museums in Canada and internationally. Recent exhibitions include Nuit Blanche Toronto (2006), ARTEFACT  Montreal Sculpture Triennial (2007), L’Oeil de Poisson in Quebec City (2008), The Power Plant in Toronto (2008), the AGYU in Toronto (2009), The National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec and the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Val-de-Marne in Paris, Mercer Union in Toronto, and the Umami Festival of Performance Art in New York City. Borsato’s works have been studied and reviewed in many publications including The Globe and Mail, C Magazine, Prefix Photo, Esse, and Canadian Art. She is currently Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studio at the University of Guelph, and lives in Toronto. For examples of past work and information about upcoming projects visit www.dianeborsato.net

The exhibition Field Work is curated by Shaun Dacey, a candidate in the Masters Degree in Critical Curatorial Studies at The University of British Columbia, with support from the Killy Foundation and the Audain Endowment for Curatorial Studies through the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory in collaboration with the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at The University of British Columbia.

Access Gallery gratefully acknowledges the Canada Council for the Arts, BC Arts Council, City of Vancouver, our members and volunteers. Access is a member of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres.

Come celebrate Access Gallery’s big move!

We are pleased to announce that effective 1 April 2010, Access Gallery will
relocate to 437 West Hastings St in the heart of downtown Vancouver!

As moving is a major endeavor, we need all the help we can get. Don’t
worry, we aren’t going to ask you to lift boxes! Rather we would like to
sit down and enjoy a delicious meal with you and chat about the gallery’s
past and future. Our current next-door neighbour, the Irish Heather, is
kindly hosting a dinner in support of Access, and we would like to see you
there!

Please join us on Thursday March 25th at 8PM for a delicious meal and a
drink, a slide show of memorable moments at 206 Carrall St, and more
detailed announcements of the move!

For only $20 per person, as part of their long table dinner series, Irish
Heather offers a drink and a gourmet meal featuring sustainably harvested
freshwater fish or a vegetarian pasta. Proceeds help Access fund its
relocation and renovation of the new space.

The menu options are:

Trout Saffron Risotto with Almond Green Beans

or

Herb Gnocchi With White Onion Puree, Butternut Squash & Shaved Parmesan

Dining at a 40ft communal table, you will enjoy great conversations and
amazing food! Guaranteed!

To reserve your place, please email access@vaarc.ca with your name, phone
#, and meal choice. Seating is limited. We recommend early registration.

For more information of the Long Table Dinner Series please see
http://ltsmenu.blogspot.com/ and

http://www.vanmag.com/Restaurants/The_Next_Course

Also note: we will have Life After Doomsday drink coasters at the dinner!

Hope to see you there!

Come EAT!  Holiday Feast!

DRINK!   mulled wine, hot apple cider with rum, and other libations!

DANCE!   to Weekend Leisure Club’s karaoke performance!

BE MERRY!  hang out at Artist-in-Residence Kate Sansom’s post-apocalyptic cocktail lounge!

There will be music, Bad Santa, SURPRISE AUCTION, raffles for cool prizes!

This holiday event honours and celebrates hard working artists, curators, writers, and other cultural producers who have given so much to ACCESS, yet ask little in return. This event is made possible by the work of 100 volunteers.

Admission is free for ACCESS volunteers and members.

Or you can become a member at the door!

Door Opens at 7pm until 12 midnight Saturday, December 12th.

Bring your friends, and party with us!

Who Should Attend
This workshop is aimed at artists with little to do no digital formatting experience, and/or those who have a mental block around digital formatting.

The Workshop
The workshop will discuss the basics of digital formatting, types of programs used to manipulate images, manipulating file size, naming conventions, color modes, cropping and manipulating images to improve image quality by adjusting levels.

What You Will Receive
Upon completion of the workshop, participants will receive an understanding of, and information related to, how the different components that affect image quality and presentation function together. This information will enable participant to format their images to meet the Canada Council’s Do’s and Don’ts of Submitting Digital Support Material.

Access 10th Anniversary, April 25 – May 24 2002

The Access 10th Anniversary reviews the curatorial history of Access while highlighting the valuable contributions of the artists and cultural workers that make up our membership and communities.

Celebration of  Disability Arts and Culture, August 16-20, 2001

Jesse Garbe and Sean Coggins

February 21 to April 4, 2009

Opens Friday February 20, 7pm

Artist talk February 21, 4pm.

“I will give a proof of my zeal: one day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! It ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one.”

- Charles Darwin.

Happy Belated Birthday Charles! Regards, Wallace is a celebration of the 200th birthday anniversary of evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. This exhibition presents information about Darwin, his love of beetles and historical and contemporary discourses surrounding Darwin’s theory of evolution. In particular, it investigates his experience with the Bombardier Beetle and the debates about this extraordinary creature’s defense mechanism.

On behalf of Alfred Wallace, we invite you to come and celebrate Charles’ birthday with us at the Access Gallery. There will be cake, balloon animals, light entertainment and a chance for you to express your ideas about Darwin’s theories.