Art Matters festival paints the town red
The Art Matters festival is on, and there are plenty of opportunities remaining to experience the largest student-run art festival in the country. Every night offers a new show or the possibility to visit a different venue.
The Receptacle, the three-part show held March 1 at the Eastern Bloc (7240 Clark St.) is a good example of what Art Matters has to offer. It explored themes of sustainability through both content and presentation.
One part of the show was held in a six-metre long, 30-cubic-metre capacity Dumpster on the street outside the Eastern Bloc. Instead of trash, the giant dustbin contained an eerie video and sound artwork, An Unrequited Search, by student Erik Zuuring.
“The dumpster itself is meant to talk about insatiable consumer culture, landfills and mass amounts of waste,” said the show’s curator, third-year undergraduate in art history Allison Smith. “We’re using the container as a way to produce something rather than get rid of something. Usually for Art Matters shows, the venues are already laid out. I’m creating my own venue.
“A lot of people think you’re crazy when you call to rent a dumpster, but not for waste,” Smith laughs. Luckily, she had some help from the City of Montreal’s Service du développement culturel, which helped defer costs and ease the permit process along.
Inside the Eastern Bloc, the multi-channel sound installation Resonant Oil presented conflicts related to the petroleum industry by placing oil atop barrels equipped with speakers beneath.
Describing the conflict in the Niger Delta, voices emanating from the barrels created sound waves that displaced and shook the oil, “revealing morsels of the struggle of the environment and human rights abuses as a direct result of oil extraction practices,” according to the artists’ statement. The project was created by students Hyun Cho, Natalie Pan, Fernando Leppe and Ramy Daghstani.
The third part of the show was Marie-Pier Breton’s black-and-white film La Toilette. The film portrayed an elderly lady going about her daily beauty ritual, and was projected on the wall behind the oil barrels. “I wanted to juxtapose the fragility of this woman and the fragility of nature with the oil,” said Smith.
Overall, she’s pleased with the show and how she presented its themes. “It’s a good opportunity. Maybe we can get the community thinking about these things.”
There’s plenty more to think about as many of the 200 artists involved in Art Matters 2011 have yet to show their work. Visit the Art Matters website to find out more.
Related links:
• Resonant Oil
• Art Matters
• “Art Matters Growing Up” – NOW, February 16, 2011