This week Struts Gallery is embarking on a three-day art fiesta involving 14 different artists presenting work in various disciplines, all touching on the idea of time. No Ceiling: It’s About Time kicks off this Thursday with a workshop from Struts’ latest artist-in-residence, Jordan Hill.
Program director Simone Schmidt dropped by CHMA to talk about No Ceiling: It’s About Time:
“We wanted to do a program that imparts skills and gets dialogue started,” says Schmidt. “A lot of the time, artists can be kind of sequestered, showing their work in isolation… not even be able to interact with the public at all. So we wanted to really get people talking and together again.”
“And the theme of time… the thing is time just grips us all. So it’s quite relatable, and it’s quite inescapable,” says Schmidt.
No Ceiling: It’s About Time is offering four workshops, which Schmidt says are free, designed for beginners, and open to all. Jordan Hill is teaching about projection mapping (projecting images onto 3D shapes), Lee Jones and Great Grip are hosting an introduction to e-textiles where participants can create their own ‘light up’ bookmark; Janet Hammock is leading a sound walk to teach about the practice of ‘deep listening’; and artist Nadia Moss hosts a queer life drawing workshop.
“The purpose of our workshops is to demystify a lot of practices,” says Schmidt. “So it’s introductory, you don’t have to have any experience. If you are just a regular person who has a computer, you can do projection mapping. You can download some free software, and Jordan Hill will teach you how to do it.”
Registration is required for the workshops, and that’s done by emailing Schmidt at admin@strutsgallery.ca.
On top of workshops, No Ceiling features a series of exhibitions, talks, performances and screenings, including local artist Dave Dyment’s film, Timeline, which is showing on a loop in the Ralph Pickard Bell Library theatre for much of Saturday, October 28. There’s also a solo trumpet w/electronics performance by Nicole Rampersaud at the Sackville United Church on Saturday night, and public performances involving a stepladder, heavy chair, and helium balloons happening throughout town on Saturday, by artist Maryse Arseneault. One of the highlights for Schmidt is a talk by artist Sarindar Dhaliwal at the Sackville Legion on Thursday, October 26.
Dhaliwal currently has an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario, which Schmidt saw recently. “It’s really imaginative, beautiful work,” says Schmidt. Dhaliwal was born in Punjab and emigrated to the UK and then Canada in her teens. One of her pieces imagines the perspective of a British cartographer responsible for drawing the line to partition India in 1947, without having set foot in the territory. On Thursday evening, Dhaliwal will, “talk about her work as it relates to time to history,” says Schmidt.
The full list of events for No Ceiling is available at strutsgallery.ca, and tantramarevents.com.
Schmidt stresses that the program is truly designed for everyone, even those without experience or education in art. “I’m an artist who never went to art school,” says Schmidt. “I find the arts to be a place where people can either obfuscate, to try to hide what they’re saying, or they can reveal more. And I really look towards work that tries to reach out from different angles to express.”
“This program has a lot of people who are articulating in really interesting ways, their own experiences of time,” says Schmidt. “I really encourage people to come.”
