future histories of salvaging the dead // Caolan Leander

An interpretive essay on Tara Nicholson’s exhibition, Mammoths, EcoZombies and Permafrost Extinction written by Caolan Leander

In Tara Nicholson’s Mammoths, EcoZombies, and Permafrost Extinction, the Arctic is seen through large-scale photographs that reveal the North in a state of crisis. Trading the frozen vistas of icebergs for intimate photographs of animal parts, riverbanks, and ice cores, her images invoke an existential uncanniness that destabilizes the viewer as we witness multiple absences through the temporary presence of decay, erosion, and thawing ice.

Crystal Przybille's Okanagan Monuments: A Dialogue Across Time // Michaela Bridgemohan

As part of a new series of essays taking inspiration from the Alternator archive, Michaela Bridgemohan considers Crystal Przybille’s practice, and the connections between two of Przybille’s recent public art commissions: The Father Pandosy Mission 150th Anniversary Commemorative Sculpture (2012) and The Chief Sʷknc̓ut Monument (2019).

main GalleryAlternator Centre for Contemporary ArtJanuary 17, 2025essay, Essay, Main gallery, Archive Essay

Reflections in a Three-Way Mirror // Jon Davies

Three Way Mirror is the collaboration of three queer artists from across Canada born in the 1970s – Daniel Barrow, Glenn Gear and Paige Gratland – who first connected in 2018 over a shared commitment to craft and ways of making like hand-drawn animation, sewing, weaving, leatherwork, beading, and paper dolls.

Art on the Front Lines // Lucas Glenn

As part of a new series of essays taking inspiration from the Alternator archive, Lucas Glenn interviews prominent syilx artist Sheldon Pierre Louis to discuss his practice, and what it means to make space for syilx and Indigenous artists.

(un)resolving liminality // Aly K. Benson

'(un)resolving liminality', an interpretive essay on Jordan Hill’s exhibition, The Missing Distance, written by Aly K. Benson.

In an evergrowing world, with each passing chance for advances to take over, we as a people expand our abilities, and our minds have no option but to choose a narrowed lane of focus. To better state, yet paradoxically: as the world gets bigger, it gets smaller.

sísp̓l̓k, a crack, the chariot, and intergenerational contexts of Mariel Belanger’s art-life practice // Erin Scott

As part of a new series of essays taking inspiration from the Alternator archive, Erin Scott explores the ever-evolving community-based arts practice of Mariel Belanger.

How to Be in an Art Gallery // Andrea Routley

As part of a new series of essays taking inspiration from the Alternator archive and activities, Andrea Routley considers Community Partnerships, and the value of creating a welcoming space.

A Generous Curiosity // Erin Stodola

As part of a new series of essays taking inspiration from the Alternator archive, Erin Stodola explores the work of Julie Oakes, founding member of the Okanagan Artists Alternative Association, the society that runs the Alternator Centre for Contemporary Art.

THE ALGORITHM // Heather Savard

“Maybe we should stop trying to understand the world and instead trust the wisdom of algorithms”

(Megan O’Gieblyn, 2024, pg. 100)

CGish amalgamates the digital with the analog, using custom generative algorithms to splice together objects into perplexing, yet believable, forms. Heather Savard, writes on the state of AI and the future of art.

Melt Down a Little // Karis Dimas-Lehndorf

Michaela brings her own diasporic Afro-Carribean heritage forward with such sincerity. The scents in the salves of hair picks also pull from the landscapes of Kelowna. Patchouli, fir, and charcoal mix with black pepper, allspice, and shea butter. Scent mimics self as an olfactory Blackness is brought into this space.

Advance of the Canadian Regressionists // Tommy LaCroix

Dissonance in music is nothing new. No one cares. It's not a question of “right or wrong”. It's just a single aspect of a greater whole. Like silence. When exploited properly it serves to enhance the other components of the composition. If it works, it's valid.

Contemplation on Natasha Harvey’s Exhibit // Norah Bowman

Natasha Harvey’s exhibit of five works expresses the desire and sorrow of her lifelong relationship with the unceded land of the Syilx Okanagan territory. A mixture of acrylic painting, spray paint, collage of found building materials, linocut print, drawing, and photography, her layered, complex, airy canvases create a ghostly landscape of lost forests, half-built wooden houses, patchy snow, torn fences, and oversized undergrowth.

Rather than romanticising houses in the woods, these works draw attention to the vulgarity of wooden houses built over the scraps of a razed forest. Rather than hiding the process of clear-cutting, excavation, and construction, Harvey’s compositions seem to peel the skin from the body of built suburbia, showing the violence of ongoing colonial land capture.

main GalleryAlternator Centre for Contemporary ArtNovember 23, 2023essay, Natasha Harvey, Norah Bowman

Glamour // Claire Geddes Bailey

The Devil came to me in the form of a tomcat. He was big and orange, short-haired, proud chest, smiling mouth. He had lovely pink satin ribbons tied round his throat, ankles, and the tip of his tail. I’d opened the door for my gray tabby, Misty, and in he came behind her.

But What Did You Come Here For // Justin Apperley

But what did you come here for?

I’m often asked.

Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine…

You mean?

Well, it must be for the nature; the remoteness, the space, the experience, the beauty.

and a Rag in the Other // An Interview with M.E. Sparks

On December 3rd, 2022, Katherine Pickering met with M.E. Sparks over Zoom to discuss her exhibition of new work at the Alternator Center for Contemporary Art. This is an excerpt of that conversation.

I Saw Something // Samuel Roy-Bois

I swear I saw something. It was right there, in front me. Nothing scary, nothing bizarre, I think. More like a form, something that has a presence, a form. It was tall. Not that tall. A bit shorter than that maybe. It was right there. I say a form but that might be misleading.

Time As Relative // Hanss Lujan Torres

What is time, and how do we experience it? Recent and ongoing events have made us all aware that

time is as fragile as it is precious. If the order of time were to collapse, for whom would it matter?

Figure as Index // Georgia Phillips-Amos

“There can be no repetition,” wrote Gertrude Stein, “because the essence of that expression is insistence, and if you insist you must each time use emphasis and if you use emphasis it is not possible while anybody is alive that they should use exactly the same emphasis.” Here, in Figure as Index, images repeat.

You can’t watch your own image and also look yourself in the eye // Shauna Thompson

Our current archeological record suggests that the earliest human-made mirrors were created approximately 8,000 years ago in southern Anatolia, or what is now south-central Turkey. These Neolithic mirrors, unearthed in the settlement of Çatalhöyük, are round or ovoid, approximately palm-sized, and were painstakingly crafted from obsidian, a deep black volcanic glass, with very finely polished, slightly convex surfaces.

main GalleryAlternator Centre for Contemporary ArtFebruary 14, 2022Kyle Beal, Shauna Thompson, mirror, mirrors

United Earth // Teresa Coady

“Construction and infrastructure development is our most impactful human activity. We must learn to alter our approach so that we ‘Design for Life, not Machines’.”

Teresa Cody reflects on the exhibition This is a Love Story, by artist Lindsay Kirker.

ESSAYS

Community built.
Artist run.