Main Gallery

Laurent Gagnon (Quebec)

A Reef Story

December 7 2007 - January 5 2008

Opens: Friday, December 7 at 7 PM

A Reef Story project examines our way of domesticating landscapes by re-creating singular spaces (remnants of foundations, a scrap yard, an old shed, a chapel, etc.) that tell cultural stories, both real and imagined. They encourage the viewer to experience through his senses the object and its inherent cultural identity. This installation presents a detached look at preconceived ideas of the rural world and nature, while the realistic details induce fascination and wonder.

In his work, Laurent Gagnon has developed a great curiosity about techniques. His investigations are varied; he produces sculpture, serigraphs, etchings, drawings, pictural projects, art books and more. But this fragmented horizon is united by a concern with density, tenacity, and minutiae that are typical of Gagnon. He has a bachelor and a master's degree in visual arts from Université Laval. He has produced a number of outdoor sculptures, including at l'îlot fleurie, Québec (Émergence '97). His work is featured in various public and private collections.

The artist would like to thank Don Darby, Valérie Murray, Jaques Harvey, Louis et Myriam Gagnon, and CALQ for assistance in this project.

POST-IT to Mr. Harper-a complete exhibition directly in his mailbox

Due to popular demand, POST-IT to Mr. Harper has gone national! We will be keeping this campaign running until the last poll closes on the west coast. We are encouraging you to donate $1 per Post-it note, which we will sign in your name. You can purchase as many as you'd like until they are all gone. As well, you can mail a cheque to:

Artspace

P.O. Box 1748

Peterborough, ON

K9J 7X6

Your donation goes toward covering the cost of the campaign as well as helping to offset recent municipal funding cuts to Artspace's programming. We just sent out the first batch of Post-its today. Over 200 were mailed to Mr. Harper's office at the House of Commons with the attached letter:

Dear Mr. Harper,

In light of the recent announcement from your government of further cuts to arts funding we
wish to showcase the importance of arts in our community and the value of organizations,
such as ours by sending to you an original piece of art.

The exhibition you are receiving is an installation comprised of 10,000 individually printed
post-it notes with signatures from members in our community concerned with the cultural
future of Canada.

We are providing you with this exhibition to demonstrate the severity of cuts in the arts and
implications of the further deterioration of support to our sector, which as you know
contributes significantly to our economic growth, international relations, and most
importantly, the quality of life for all ordinary Canadians.

Pieces of this exhibition with original signatures from ordinary Canadians are being
sent to you individually, and instructions for re-installation of the work will be provided to
you with post-it #1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 and 5000.

We hope you enjoy this exhibition.

Sincerely,
Ordinary Canadians for the Arts – ARTSPACE ARC, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

*****

For Immediate Release

October 2, 2008

Peterborough Artspace announces the POST-IT petition campaign in reaction to Conservative government’s cuts in funding for arts and culture.

To showcase the importance of arts in our community, and the value of arts organizations such as Artspace, we will send to our Prime Minister an ORIGINAL PIECE OF ART ONE POST-IT AT A TIME.

Using the most recent exhibition at Artspace, “Taking Care of Business” by Immony Men which is comprised of 10,000 Post-it notes, we are aiming to put one signature on each Post-it from members of our community that are concerned with the recent cuts in arts funding and mail them individually to the Prime Minister’s office.

For $1.00 you will have a choice of any unsigned Post-it on the wall, numbered and labeled with Ordinary Canadian For the Arts. In support of the arts, you will leave your signature on the chosen Post-it which we will document, and send individually with an explanation of the petition directly to Mr. Harper at the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada.

The proceeds from this campaign will cover administrative costs for the petition as well as help to support Artspace in light of recent funding cuts to our programming.

We are seeking 10,000 signatures! To make this action effective we ask everyone to stop by Artspace and sign the POST-IT petition.

The petition kicks-off on Saturday October 4, 2008 at NOON in conjunction with the Artsweek street party. Artspace will remain open until MIDNIGHT on October 4th. We will be showcasing other ways you can get involved and provide information on the actions Canadians across the country are undertaking to highlight culture as a nationalist issue in the coming election. The POST-IT campaign will continue until October 10th 2008 and regular Artspace programming will resume after October 14th.

Please tell your friends, family and colleagues about this campaign and show your support by participating in this one-of-a-kind petition: POST-IT to Mr. Harper. A complete exhibition directly in his mailbox.

AND

GONE IN 30 SECONDS-ARTSPACE SPEAKER'S CORNER

Saturday October 4th from 9pm to midnight we will extend our video equipment to help you make your 30 second videos-a reaction to the cuts, the future of culture, or whatever message you want to send to the government.

Lester Alfonso, our resident filmmaker, will compile and edit your videos, post them on Youtube and forward them to the Department of Culture for a national collection of stories from across the country.

Show Up! Speak Up! This is your future at stake!

For information and questions please contact Artspace:

705-748-3883

info@artspace-arc.org

378 Aylmer St. N. Peterborough ON

Ernest Daetwyler: Shelter Spheres

Public art project presented by ARTSPACE

May 29 – June21 2009
in downtown Peterborough locations (look for it in Hunter/Aylmer area)

Opening reception and Artist Talk: Friday, May 29th 7 PM at ARTSPACE

The site-specific installation Shelter Spheres consists of a cluster of nine interactive, floating spheres, a temporary utopian living environment in an urban area, both public and private, in Peterborough.

Appearing as dreamy, temporary and volatile spaces, each sphere is made of plastic wrap, transparent duct tape, steel and wood and the larger ones (up to two meters in diameter) close to the ground invite the public to interact and access its interiors. Smaller spheres are placed up high in the trees, impossible to reach or inhabit and floating in space as plastic bubbles.

The installation Shelter Spheres recalls associations with an utopian environment or particularly when inhabited, a scientific experiment and has an immediate, poetic and surreal presence.


Ernest Daetwyler studied at the Schule fuer Gestaltung, Bern, the Centro Europeo in Venice, Italy and received his master diploma from the Schule fuer Gestaltung, St. Gallen, Switzerland. His interdisciplinary projects are presented in Canada, Europe and internationally. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, Presence Suisse, the Region of Waterloo Arts Fund, the City of Kitchener, the City of Stratford and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, New York, N.Y. 

Ernest is a director/founding member of CAFKA, the Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area, an international artist-run biennial of contemporary art projects and interventions in the pubic realm throughout the Region of Waterloo (www.cafka.org).



This project is being presented by ARTSPACE in conjunction with Ontario Heritage Conference 2009, Peterborough ON.

BLASTED - a novel by Kate Story

Book Launch: Thursday, August 28 at 8pm.

Blasted is the story of Ruby Jones: irreverent, exuberant, and troubled. Lurching between love affairs and cities, she is haunted by mysteries that surround her father and generations before. Steeped in Newfoundland folklore, Blasted mines a rich vein of experience, layering the mundane and the magical, evoking the forces that inhabit the land. The narrative shifts between generations and geographies, between contemporary life and stories as old as the Hill that looms over Ruby’s birthplace. Vivid characters surround her: her irascible grandfather, elegant Cree artist Blue, her whiskey-slugging Aunt Queenie, and others, sinister and unexplained. When Ruby unravels at last, she must face the demons that pursue her.

Kate Story will be reading from her novel accompanied by musicians Curtis Driedger and Derek Bell who will be underscoring the reading with original compositions, morphing into traditional and contemporary songs and back again, evoking the moods and themes of Blasted.

Presented by Cooked and Eaten Reading Series and Artspace, the launch of Blasted published by Killick Press (St. John’s) will be the kick-off for an eastern tour, taking in Toronto, Montreal, Fredericton, Liverpool, Broad Cove, Halifax, and St. John's.

Admission to the launch is free. Artspace is located at 378 Aylmer St. N. in Peterborough. Copies of the book will be for sale at the launch. For more information about the tour and the book you can check out the author’s website at www.katestory.com.

Blasted has received advance praise by some of Newfoundland’s most respected writers, including River Thieves author Michael Crummy, who declared the book “raw and strange and hilarious and affecting.” Anne Hart, a St. John’s-based biographer and specialist in Newfoundland studies, called it “an irresistible first novel.”

“Kate Story’s debut novel is an unlikely marriage of Newfoundland’s oldest traditional lore with the contemporary urban world of St. John’s and Toronto. The result is raw and strange and hilarious and affecting. Ruby Jones—itinerant waitress, sometime nude model, budding alcoholic—admits early on that tenderness and rage are her ‘heart language.’ Blasted offers both in spades.” - Michael Crummey

“In Blasted, Kate Story pulls her readers into the vivid and chaotic world of young Ruby Jones, a fairy-led Newfoundlander with inner demons to slay both in southside St. John's and Queen Street Toronto. An irresistible debut novel.” - Anne Hart

“I am as delighted as other readers will be with this young Newfoundland writer. With talent and patience Kate Story has unearthed another of the many mysteries hidden within the Southside Hills.” - Bernice Morgan

Writer, performer, and choreographer Kate Story was born and raised in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in a house built by her great great grandfather beneath the Southside Hill. Her short fiction has been published in magazines including Broken Pencil Magazine, Takeout, and Kiss Machine (and upcoming in B.P.'s best fiction anthology, ECW Press 2009). Her written performance works have been produced as plays, performance art, and theatre-dance productions in Ontario (Toronto, Peterborough) and Newfoundland and Labrador (St. John’s). She has been twice nominated for the Ontario Arts Council’s K.M. Hunter Artist Award. Blasted is her first novel.