Intro

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i don’t know if i should be looking at

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you or the camera

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[Laughter]

What do you love most when a new curation launches?

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okay what do i love most when a new

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curation launches so

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i guess i’m not sure if the question is

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about when an exhibition is first put up

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or about when

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um we’re sort of starting the planning

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so maybe i’ll kind of tackle both

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so

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um i guess when a new exhibition goes up

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one of the things i love most is when i

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get to talk to gallery attendants

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and hear about conversations they’ve had

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with visitors

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especially when

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maybe a visitor noticed something or saw

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something an artwork i didn’t think

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about or

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when they’ve learned something or were

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kind of challenged in their thinking

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or when i get to have those

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conversations with visitors as well

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through our programs

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um

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but when we’re sort of in the beginning

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stages of an exhibition

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i really enjoy sort of that very initial

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stage of just research so whether i’m

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working on a historical show where i’m

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getting to

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read books or go into the archive

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or sort of

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discover where artworks are in different

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public and private collections

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or if i’m working with contemporary

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artists getting into their studio seeing

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what they’re working on um

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learning about the ideas they’re

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thinking about and their influences and

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then getting to dive deeper into those

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to be able to write about and interpret

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their work for the public so i love that

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kind of initial stage when things are

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still unknown and very broad

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you don’t quite know what form the show

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is going to take yet

How do I get started on the path to curation?

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so i guess for me personally i followed

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maybe a more formal or conventional path

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i studied art history and university and

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i was really fortunate to be able to do

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a practicum and an internship in

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different art galleries

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but i think beyond some sort of

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prescriptive educational or experiential

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path

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um it’s really about just immersing

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yourself in an arts community so

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going to see art going to reading about

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art

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meeting artists and having conversations

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with them

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and talking to other people about art i

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think so much of curating is really just

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about building relationships and

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collaborating um and so i think kind of

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immersing yourself in a community and

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building those relationships is really

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key

What’s your oldest object?

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okay so i managed the art collection

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here at the gallery and

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someone asked about the oldest object we

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have

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that would be a sandstone sculpture from

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central india um made in the 11th or

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12th century

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it is a representation of the god the

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hindu god shiva in his most ferocious

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form the bahrava

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so shiva is a god that

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is meant to destroy the universe in

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order to recreate it so he is someone

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who represents

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many contradictions

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and in the sculpture we have he has

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eight arms and he’s holding different

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attributes that represent him such as a

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drum and a skull topped staff

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this sculpture in its size and intricacy

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indicates that it was most likely

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commissioned by royalty at the time

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it’s also one of the largest and

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heaviest sculptures we have in the

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collection

What does your typical day look like?

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okay so my typical day at the gallery

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involves a lot of different tasks

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dealing with both the collection and

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with exhibitions

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so i might come into the office and

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check on all our art storage vaults and

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deal with administrative tasks related

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to the collections so

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processing new acquisitions or dealing

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with loans or

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answering public inquiries about our

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collection or about our exhibition

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history

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and then also planning exhibitions so

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researching

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working on floor plans writing labels

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editing them

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[Music]

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or actually being physically in the

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installation

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and i’d say the majority of my work is

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in my office on my computer and i often

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have several meetings working with all

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my colleagues across the gallery to

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bring exhibitions to fruition

Who is your favourite artist

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okay who is my favorite artist um this

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is a question that i’m not going to

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answer

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because it’s too difficult

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but because i do manage the collection

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um

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i thought i could talk about a work that

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really fascinates me and has been top of

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mind because i

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had the opportunity recently to show it

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to a class of university students

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so this is a photograph by

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an artist named hugo view agar and it’s

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from 1914

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so it’s one of the oldest photographs we

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have in the collection

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and

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its title is irma and hem and it is an

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autochrome so an autochrome is an early

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color photo process

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that was patented in 1903 by the lumiere

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brothers in france

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and

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in really simplistic terms

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it’s made by coating a glass plate with

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microscopic grains of potato starch that

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are dyed in the primary colors

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and hugo viogar was born in germany

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came to canada around 1912 and he set up

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a photography studio on jasper ave in

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edmonton

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and he was one of the only people

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working in the autochrome process in

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north america and the only one in our

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region of western canada

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and this image is particularly beautiful

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it’s of his daughter

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irma

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but if you look closely in the

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background you’ll see a kind of shadowy

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figure of a young boy

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named him that’s her brother

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and

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what’s fascinating about this work is

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that the way it’s made is still a

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mystery to us

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over 100 years later

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the autochrome process didn’t allow for

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a double exposure so some experts think

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that

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uh viewagar was using mirrors

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other think that maybe there was an old

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image that wasn’t washed off the plate

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and so it showed up when he was taking

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this picture of his daughter

Which object would you use to explain humanity to aliens?

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okay

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this is a difficult question which

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object would i use to explain humanity

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to aliens

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okay i’m going to bring it back to the

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collection because that’s always top of

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mind um

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so a work that we acquired

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just last year actually is by the artist

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dean dreever

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the work is called pass the hat and

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it is um

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a maquette so a model for the larger

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finished work so the maquette is only

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about 36 inches tall and the final work

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is over 17 feet

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dean dreever is haida and he’s from

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edmonton but he’s now based in toronto

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and he has made several works out of

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stacked paper and this is one of them

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so after

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in through conversations with him i

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learned that the work is um it’s a totem

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pole it takes a shape of a totem pole

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and the top figure is a thunderbird and

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it’s meant to represent himself and the

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bottom figure is a bear and it

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represents his daughter and in between

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is a space where the thunderbird is

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passing a watchman’s hat

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to the bear and so

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for

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dean

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it’s about

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passing on sort of knowledge and lineage

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um to his daughter to the younger

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generation as she watches over her own

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generation and he watches over her

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so the work has personal and cultural

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symbolism but i think its message

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related to

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relationships

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to intergenerational

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knowledge and care is really

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a universal of all humans

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and the other really fascinating thing

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about this work is that

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um

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it

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has a commentary on technology and the

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way humans have adapted technology

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throughout time so he’s reconfiguring

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a traditional totem pole into paper you

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and using

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advanced technologies to construct that

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but he’s also using paper which is a

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very ancient

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form of material

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that humans have made

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you

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