Online Exhibitions
KW|AG reach online projects help to dissolve geographic limitations that historically prevented a non-Regional audience from knowing what the Gallery is currently working on. Parochial Views and the Vernacular Series are designed to dispatch the diverse content, individual personalities, and cultural geography generated within the Waterloo Region. Much like our Gallery programming, KW|AG reach programming is devoted to inverting our definitions of "global" and "local". KW|AG reach allows us to broadcast artistic investigations of the ephemeral, shifting histories of our Region.
Two of our newest projects belong to our Vernacular Series. "Vernacular" is an informal way of speaking. These projects are, in a sense, about dialogue (between writers and artists, the past and the present, and individuals and communities).
The Vernacular Series projects emphasize the diverse content, eccentric personalities, legends, and marginal histories that give our Region texture. These online projects are always available free of charge on the KW|AG website.
The Vernacular Series: Projects Expressing the Informal and the Local
Vernacular Series 1: Remnants: The Kitchener Industrial Artefacts Project
View the online publication, including text and images of Nicholas Rees's art, inspired by the conflict of the destruction and preservation of the manufacturing history of the region. In addition, images of related artefacts and shoe forms are documented. Watch the video of the 14 public industrial artefacts that were placed on display in the Region.
Postscript to Remnants: Forsyth Factory Demolition
The last major demolition came much later than the others and its memory is still fresh. The John Forsyth shirt factory located in the heart of downtown Kitchener was torn down in the winter of 2006 amidst a storm of controversy arising from its significance as a heritage building. Reported to be structurally unsound, the factory was scheduled for quick demolition. A small group gathered early one Saturday morning in January to pay their respects and reflect on what might have been. A cold front that had moved in suddenly overnight, bringing high winds and frigid temperatures, added to the mood of loss.
The old building proved resilient to the first attempts of the excavators, but then reluctantly began to yield its soul. Plumes of dust shot out of an expanding cavity and were swiftly born aloft by the high wind, which created an eerie banshee-like wail as it penetrated the interior of the factory. There had been rumours of a ghost that haunted the building; windows left open one night were mysteriously found closed the next morning, strange noises, a digital image showing an empty room with a spectral form suddenly materializing. Was the shriek of the wind something more than just acoustic? My Celtic imagination was piqued. The demolition was halted after only a few minutes due to safety considerations arising from the wind, resuming the following week during a spell of unseasonably mild weather.
As always, there was the sense of irreversible loss: unlike the ruins of antiquity or the medieval era, these demolitions are transitory, and the ruins they leave lack the gentleness and grace that comes from age. To stand in the fallen nave of Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire, or any of its companions, is to feel at peace, or even blessed - there is a sense of the imperturbable continuity of life, something that always provides hope. With the industrial demolitions there is often a sense of violation and haste; a furtive need to get the deed over with quickly and move on to the next phase, leaving only a brief residue of melancholy for those whose lives were once bound up with the structure. - Nicholas Rees, March 2006
Vernacular Series 2: The Baden Hotel Project
Guest Writer: Jane Urquhart
Photographer: Kim Clarke
View the online publication.
The publication features, from the historically designated Baden Tavern, images of 23 ceiling tile paintings by an unknown 20th Century itinerant painter. The project is comprised of an introduction by novelist Jane Urquhart reflecting on inspiration and excerpts from Urquhart's book, A Map of Glass, which includes a fictional character inspired by the Baden Tavern project.
Vernacular Series 3: Mark, A Dedicated Man of Fashion
Artist: Wendy Morgan
Guest Writer: Don Druick
Subject: Mark Gridgeman
View the online publication or visit the Mark, A Dedicated Man of Fashion web site.
The project is a series of still, video and audio portraits of eccentric Kitchener resident Mark Gridgeman, a retired journalist who frequents the region in various stylized personas. Artist Wendy Morgan has been commissioned to capture on video and stills, the vocabulary of Gridgeman's fashion and karaoke impressions at a local bar. The project is an innovative addition to the faceLIFT Series that reflects artists continuing interest in portraiture.
Vernacular Series 4: Great_Expectations
Artist: Linda Duvall
Visit the Great Expectations web site.
Between 2004 and 2005, artist Linda Duvall set up a booth at the entrance of KW|AG to conduct interviews with visitors (entitled Tongue Wag at KW|AG) during the River: Grand! exhibition and also traced the behavioural patterns of visitors during the annual Grand National quilt exhibition. The online project is comprised of Duvall's documentation of her observations and includes exhibition images related to these observations.
Duvall's art practice has consistently maintained an interest in the material and transformative qualities of human social interaction. An outcome of this project is an insight into the expectations and reflections that visitors bring to the gallery and often lays bare the distance between the institutional intentions and the actual visitor experience. Within the text component of the project, a dialogue with the visitor responses has been created by interspersing comments from the gallery perspective.
Singularly Significant Series
Singularly Significant Series: The Notebook Project
View The Notebook Project web site
"The artist's notebook can be viewed as a tool of creation while it is being used: or as a place, very similar to a studio, for thinking, musing and doodling." - Isabella Stefanescu
The genesis for The Notebook Project began in Isabella Stefanescu's studio with KW|AG curator Allan MacKay and discussion regarding the particular content and significance of notebooks to the artist's practice. From these initial musings a collaborative project was born under the artistic direction of Isabella Stefanescu. An image-sound-viewer interface was developed that allows the notebook to become an architectural space whose narrative sequence and sound is controlled and influenced by the viewer.
The pages of the notebook are transformed into wall-sized projected images with the viewer controlling the sequence of the content. The intimate notebook page becomes a wall and the sense of touch is replaced by the awareness of the viewer's presence in architectural space.
This collaborative image, sound and interactive project has invented a creative context which reveals the often private mark making and notations of the artist and provides a window into the artistic process.
Parochial Views
Parochial Views 1: Robert Keziere - Electrified Boot Form
The first project in the Parochial Views series is an image of an electrified boot form photographed by the internationally respected documentary photographer Robert Keziere. The object was featured in Remnants: The Kitchener Industrial Artefacts Project, an exhibition and online publication by Waterloo Region artist Nicholas Rees.
View the Electrified Boot Form PDF.
About Nicholas Rees
Artist Nicholas Rees was born in Durban, South Africa in 1949 and came to Canada in 1961. Rees studied Fine Arts at University of Waterloo under the influence of Virgil Burnett. He has worked as an artist in both print-making and sculpture in Waterloo Region since 1973, and currently teaches sculpture at Wilfrid Laurier University. Awards and affiliations include: the Inaugural Artist-in-Residence for City of Kitchener (1995), Kitchener-Waterloo Arts Awards Visual Artist Winner (1996), Founder and Director of Kitchener Industrial Artefacts Project (1996), and Member of Globe Studios in Kitchener.
Learn more about Nicholas Rees and KW|AG's exhibitions A Telling Story and Remnants: The Kitchener Industrial Artefacts Project.
Image: Nicholas Rees, Parochial Views No. 1- Electrified Boot Form, colour photograph, 94 cm x 75 cm, 2005.
Support for the Parochial Views series has been provided by: Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, The City of Kitchener, The City of Waterloo, and the Musagetes Fund at the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation.
Parochial Views 2: Geoffrey James - New Jerusalem Road
"I was asked to produce a single vertical image that would say something about the landscape of the region. My normal way of working is cumulative, a body of work that is an investigation of a subject and that frequently takes the form of a book, where a sequence of photographs can inform and reinforce each other. For the commission, I chose a single standing tree on New Jerusalem Road, a few miles outside Waterloo. The region has a remarkable working agrarian landscape, in large part due to the presence of Mennonites. I was amazed at the number of standing, maintained woodlots on the farms. Everything about the farming methods speaks to long-term sustainability. The farms are close to the city — there has been a clear effort to prevent the kind of endless urban sprawl that surrounds Toronto — and there is also the slightly disconcerting presence of agri-tourism, where the traditional lives of the Mennonites become a selling point for retail villages. One has the impression of living in two separate envelopes of time. The area is rich in possibilities that I would like to pursue." - Geoffrey James
View the New Jerusalem Road PDF.
About Geoffrey James
Born in St. Asaph, Wales, Geoffrey James currently lives and works in Toronto. His works are featured in numerous international public collections such as National Gallery of Canada; San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In 2006 Douglas & McIntyre published Toronto, a collection of photographs by James along with an introduction by University of Toronto philosophy professor and author Mark Kingwell: James is represented by Galerie Rene Blouin, Montreal; Equinox, Vancouver; and Trepanier Baer Gallery, Calgary.
Learn more about Geoffrey James and KW|AG's exhibitions A Telling Story and Field Notes.
Image: Geoffrey James, Parochial Views No. 2 - New Jerusalem Road, black and white photograph,
56 cm x 23.5 cm, 2005.
Support for the Parochial Views series has been provided by: Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, The City of Kitchener, The City of Waterloo, and the Musagetes Fund at the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation.
Parochial Views 3: Shelly Niro - Beloved, Admired, Revered
"I always am drawn to monuments from the past. There are reasons why they float through the landscaped gardens of governmental establishments. These places are usually fixed in areas that attract the general population for festivities and gatherings. I just happened to be in downtown Kitchener on Pride Day. This was the year Brokeback Mountain had its run through the theatres. Cowboy hats could be seen all through the park area. Off to one side Queen Victoria stands and still registers a "Rule Britannia" aura.
Living on the Six Nations most of my life, I am also reminded of Victoria's contribution to the Six Nations. After the American Revolution, as sovereign allies with the British, the Mohawks fled their ancestral lands. Having left the Mohawk Valley and travelling for months, the Six Nations people had no provisions once they arrived on the banks of the Grand River. A message was sent to Victoria, "We need food! To commemorate her birthday and success of the British Empire, Victoria responded with "Give them bread and cheese". This has become a tradition on the Six Nations to this day. The Queen no longer supplies the bread and cheese, but it is a reminder (I suppose) of how polite society acknowledges contributions made by the Native populations around the world. And to the established governments she is "Beloved, Admired, Revered." - Shelley Niro
View the Beloved, Admired, Revered PDF.
About Shelley Niro
Shelley Niro is a member of the Turtle Clan, Bay of Quinte Mohawk from the Six Nations Reserve. A graduate of the Ontario College of Art, Niro received her MFA from the University of Western Ontario. Her work has been broadly exhibited in galleries across Canada and can be found in the collections of the Canada Council Art Bank and the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Her award-winning films have been screened in festivals worldwide. Her video The Shirt was presented at the 2003 Venice Biennale. Shelley Niro lives in Brantford, Ontario.
Image: Shelly Niro, Beloved, Admired, Revered, black and white photograph, 58 cm x 47.5 cm, 2006. Image courtesy of the artist.
Support for the Parochial Views series has been provided by: Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, The City of Kitchener, The City of Waterloo, and the Musagetes Fund at the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation.
Parochial Views 4: Scott Conarroe - Model Boat Club
"My images of landscapes come from an aesthetic tradition of social documentary photography. I produce work that has much in common with the New Topographics and Lynne Cohen and large format photojournalists like Simon Norfolk. Rather than cryptic or exotic locales, however, the places I engage are used every day by an imaginary audience of average people. To date, the photographic projects I have undertaken are sprawling, patient portrayals of Canadian communities, their infrastructure and their ambience. I have produced series about the largest centres on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, a tiny town deep in the wilds of north-western Ontario, and a minor city in a region identified as both industrial heartland and agricultural Eden. My practice involves depicting familiar types of vistas with an intimacy that elevates them. The cumulative result is a project that is national in scope yet intensely personal." - Scott Conarroe
View the Model Boat Club PDF.
About Scott Conarroe
Scott Conarroe was born in Edmonton and received a BFA from the Emily Carr Institute (Vancouver, 2001) and an MFA from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (2005). His photographs are regularly exhibited and collected in Europe, the United States, and across Canada. They have been published in magazines such as Prefix Photo, Canadian Geographic, The Walrus, and the recent book on contemporary Canadian photography Carte Blanche. He lives in Toronto and is represented by Stephen Bulger Gallery.
Learn more about Scott Conarroe and KW|AG's Apertura exhibition.
Image: Scott Conarroe, colour photograph, 75 cm x 98 cm, 2007. Image courtesy of the artist.
Support for the Parochial Views series has been provided by: Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, The City of Kitchener, The City of Waterloo, and the Musagetes Fund at the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation.
Parochial Views 5: Guy Maddin - Berlin
The Earliest Surviving Film of Kitchener
The Ideas Behind Maddin's Berlin
Guy Maddin's Berlin is based on a number of unedited scenes from a film that was created in 1916 to boost Kitchener's profile. Kitchener, known then as Berlin, had suffered severe criticism from outsiders for not doing its part during World War I. The 118th Battalion, based in Berlin, had difficulty filling its ranks; uniformed soldiers pressured young men to sign up. Berlin's businessmen believed it would be a positive step to rename the Ontario city, so it no longer carried the name of the enemy's capital city. Following a controversial local referendum, in June 1916, the city was renamed Kitchener.
In May 1916, in another effort to improve the city's image, city council hired Galt filmmaker Charlie Roos to shoot a movie celebrating the city's war effort. Roos and another cameraman shot footage showing the 118th Battalion exercising in Victoria Park, exiting their barracks at Queen South and Courtland, marching along Queen and King Streets, and receiving $10 gold coins from the city. Other images included the Berlin fire department and the view from a camera attached to a streetcar running the length of King Street.
The final film was 15 minutes long and included a short gun-firing scene from another war movie Roos was working on in Galt. Three Berlin theatre managers: George Pop Philip, Al Beckerich and Bill Metcalf, along with Charlie Roos in a floppy cap, are seen at the end of the film near the Queen Victoria monument in Victoria Park.
Although the original film has disappeared, unedited scenes survived and were stored at the Lyric Theatre for several decades by projectionist William Musclow. In the 1970s, these film snippets were turned over to the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. The film was a positive on silver nitrate stock and was extremely flammable. The Record paid to have it transferred to a 16mm safety film positive. These unedited scenes are the earliest surviving film of Kitchener/Berlin and are the basis for Maddin's Berlin trailer.
View the Berlin PDF and learn more about Guy Maddin's Art Talk at Perimeter Institute.
The Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery acknowledges the assistance of rych mills in providing much of this original text pertaining to Berlin's history, and the Princess Theatre and John Tutt for the screening of Berlin.
About Guy Maddin
Guy Maddin is a world-renowned independent filmmaker. The director of nine feature-length films and 15 shorts, he has been honoured with a number of awards, including two Best Experimental Film Awards by the U.S. National Society of Film Critics Awards (in 2001 for Heart of the World and in 1991 for Archangel); an international Emmy and a Gemini Award for Dracula - Pages from a Virgin's Diary; and the prestigious Telluride Medal for lifetime achievement at the 1995 Telluride Film Festival. He has also collaborated with Isabella Rossellini on two films, The Saddest Music in the World (2003) and My Dad is 100 Years Old, an unconventional documentary honouring the anniversary of Roberto Rossellini's birth. His films have been shown in festivals around the world. He is also an author, a freelance film journalist, and a teacher of film studies.
Image: Guy Maddin, Berlin, digital video disc, 1 minute, 2007.
Support for the Parochial Views series has been provided by: Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, The City of Kitchener, The City of Waterloo, and the Musagetes Fund at the Kitchener and Waterloo Community Foundation.
Parochial Views 6: Susan Coolen - Parlance
"Parlance, a series of 10 photographic diptychs, was created for KW|AG's 2008 Parochial Views project. These works begin with what is literally 'at my feet' - the arboreal droppings and remnants of local trees, bushes and plants found along city sidewalks and in parking lots, cemeteries, and backyards. These nature items are the 'common parlance' of nature in the city of Kitchener and I use them to develop works, which amplify the variant graphic forms of each [their individual exterior shapes, the shapes created within the plant material by processes of deterioration, etc].
This Parochial Views project then begins with the usual act of 'looking, just looking' for nature here in the urban environs of Kitchener-Waterloo. This process of looking and gathering is continuous and fortuitous - I never know what I am going to find, and I found myself constantly pleased with the unexpectedness of nature in this city [fallen leaves, scattered stems, trampled twigs].
I collect what catches my eyes and gather it up to bring back to my studio to photograph and explore. I use the scanner to make photographic images of these collections. It is a process of percolation and an immediate response to the 'found' subject matter of nature - a visual/graphic impression. It may be the outline of a branch that catches my eye, the suggestive curves and shape of twigs, the stark rips in trodden leaves, or the holes made in a leaf by bugs or by fungi. I also return to early darkroom practices … the photogram, with its links to light and shadow, positive and negative space. Here I am able to reduce the specimens to their 'elemental' or graphic form and then respond to this with a play or repetition and rhythm that suggest written language, codes, notation, and decoration. My intent has been to reduce these objects to some of their simplest forms, yet give a complex and meaningful response. Parlance continues my interest in mark making, letterforms [alphabets], and in the urge to make meaning though ordering and organization [formalized visual expression: script, calligraphy, shorthand. code etc].
The pleasure of the Parochial Views project, for me, is located in the joy of seeing and finding, while being challenged to make images that might combine into a coherent and meaningful series hinting at the idea that the graphic forms of nature found here in Kitchener are also humanity's 'common parlance' - the inspiration of written language and decorative motif." - Susan Coolen
View the Parlance PDF.
Images: Susan Coolen, Parochial Views No. 6- Parlance, 2 Archival glicé prints, 30" x 30" each, diptych size 60" x 30" each, 2008. Images courtesy of the artist.
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