Exhibition - Empathy | Aesthetic Reflections on Marginalization

This exhibition seeks to examine the role of marginalization in everyday life and its influences on artistic practices. The goal is to create a framework that allows for empathetic viewing of works of art concerning experiences that may not be akin to one's own. In this way, it is hoped that visitors can become more aware of the ways in which empathy goes beyond acceptance and challenges normative assumptions about the lived experiences of others. Ten artists are featured: Victoria Dvorsky, Rihab Essayh, Veronique Sunatori, Jonah Migicovsky, Mourad Kouri, Chloe Wise, Chara Le Marquand, Alyse Tunnell, Tamara Harkness, and Sophie Watts.

Presented concurrently at two venues, this curatorial project is the first collaboration between Galerie VAV Gallery, the Ethnocultural Art Histories Research Group (EAHR) and 11 undergraduate students in Dr. Alice Ming Wai Jim's fall 2013 course "ARTH 389 Race, Citizenship and Art in Canada." Artworks were selected by the student curatorial jury of the basis of proposals received from their open call. Curatorial essays written by Aaliyeh Afshar, Claude Bock, Meriam Bousehla-Demers, Isabel Connolly, Leyla Goka, Katrina Jurjans, Kris Millar (VAV co-Director), Marlee Parsons (EAHR), Ruby-Chanel Simard, Emma Sise, and Hannah van der Est, with editorial contributions by Alice Ming Wai Jim, are available online at http://empathyexhibition.tumblr.com/.

Additional information

When:

Opening: November 11, 6-9pm, at Galerie VAV Gallery.
Artists and curators in attendance
November 10-22, 2013

Where: 2 Venues

1-Galerie VAV Gallery
1395 René Levesque Blvd., W.
Monday-Friday 9am-9pm

2-Department of Art History Vitrine
EV Building, 1515 Ste. Catherine St., W., 3rd floor
Any time

Free admission

Email: Kris Millar, Co-Director, VAV Gallery, or call 514-8482424, ext. 7956 (Wed 3-5pm)
or Sarah Catherine De Montigny Racher, EAHR Media Coordinator.

Special thanks to members of EAHR -- Sarah Catherine De Montigny Racher, Adrienne Johnson, Marlee Parsons, and Brittany Watson, the Staff of Galerie VAV Gallery - Co-Directors Kris Millar and Clinton Glenn and Gallery Technician Catherine Fournier-Poirier, the Department of Art History, Eliana Stratica Mihail for the vitrine, and all of our volunteers. EAHR's activities are generously supported by the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art, Concordia University.

Concordia University's VAV Gallery is the democratically-run student exhibition space operated by and for undergraduate students in the Faculty of Fine Arts.

EAHR (Ethnocultural Art Histories Research Group) is a student-driven research community that facilitates opportunities for exchange and creation in the examination of and engagement with issues of ethnic and cultural representation within the visual arts in Canada.