Text by Portia Priegert from the original 2003 Brochure
Keithe Langergarber and Atafeh Shojaie both journey into memories of the place, exploring the unstable terrain at the shifting crossroads of culture and geography. Theirs is an evolving landscape refracted by the prism of time and coloured by personal experience.
The impetus for both artists has roots in the personal. for Langergarber, it’s a childhood in the smelter town of Trail B.C, and firsthand experience of the landscape not as a stui of romantic grandeur but as an ongoing process of ruination and reclamation. For Shojaie, it’s a childhood in Iran and her subsequent experience of Western freedoms.
Langergarber focuses his artistic practice on abandoned industrial sites in British Columbia, exploring locations as disparate as a crumbling irrigation system in Fintry, a former cement factory at Bamberton and historic mines in the West Kootenays. He combs through old newspapers and dusty maps in small-town museums and collects artifacts from remote sites for exhibition. His history is not the popularised version of cultural themes parks but raw and often mysterious fragments that evoke less familiar realities. “For me, the inherent imagery of found artifacts suggests the traces of human industry embedded in the permanence of a relentless landscape,” says Langergarber. “the collecting of objects is the basis for a scrutiny of places and history that sifts through the strata of time, looking for evidence of social, cultural, and political change.”
For this exhibition, Langergarber explored an abandoned Chinese migrant farm on the Musqueam reserve beside the Fraser River in Vancouver. during his research, Langergarber discovered that Chow Chee, a market gardener who leased the five-acre parcel in the 1930s, had gone to court for the payment of $34.70 in property taxes levied by the municipality. He lost his court appeal and became the first non-native living on the reserve to be assessed for taxes by the city of Vancouver. This issue, unearthed by Langergarber after he began exploring the site, reverberates with current debates over aboriginal land rights. indeed, modern-day tenants on the Musqueam land went to the Supreme Court of Canada, successfully challenging the band’s attempt to increase their rent.
Shojaie’s interest in cultural history is driven by her experience of moving to Canada with her family at the age of 10. Her work draws from experiences in bot Iran and Canada, exploring identity through fragmented and layered images. She exposes the personal, lifting the veil on memories covered by the swirling sands of time. Her esthetic lines are not in the dense massing of artists presented by Langergarber but in a more spartan juxtaposition of ephemera. Photographic self-portraits on glassine layered with Farsi text and Persian rug motifs transferred onto tea bags become a search to unite present and past lives
Both Langergarber and Shojaie can be compared to archeologists who excavate the past while referencing the present. Poetic and expressive, their creative play with memory and place blends the ‘then and there’ with the ‘here and now’ to offer insight into often-hidden or unofficial cultural histories.
Portia Priegert was the director of the Alternator Centre for the Contemporary Arts.
Keith Langergraber received his BFA from the University of Victoria and his MFA from the University of British Columbia. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group shows in galleries in Canada, the United States, and Asia since 1995. He has received many grants and awards for his work on the leading edge of Canadian Art, including being nominated for the Sobey Award in 2009. Keith has taught at the University of British Columbia, Emily Carr University, and North Island College. In 2005 he was selected to represent Emily Carr at the Canadian Art Colleges Collaborative Banff Residency, Media and Visual Arts. His art work grows from an interest in social, cultural, and political change found through scrutiny of a selected site. His exhibitions consist of the accumulation and reconstitution of information through the peeling back of layers of the vernacular landscape.
Check out his website here: https://keithlangergraber.com/
Atefeh graduated from UBC Okanagan in 2002 with a Bachelors degree in fine Art. She began her makeup career as a visual artist where her strong eye for color theory, shapes and textures validated her skills and encouraged her to pursue her career in the arts.
Her love for creating beauty launched her Makeup Artist career at Estee Lauder in 2002, and two years later she joined the team of MAC Cosmetics. Her 11 years with MAC helped develop her creative eye and techniques in the makeup world, while keeping her current with all the latest trends worldwide. After moving to Vancouver Atefeh began to develop her hair styling skills by working at the Blo Bar.
Atefeh continues to maintain a strong and passionate drive for the industry, not to mention the love of creating beautiful fresh new work. She brings a level of professionalism, attention to detail, and enthusiasm to every job. Over the years Atefeh has gained her expertise at Fashion, editorial, commercials and TV series. Here work has been featured in magazines such as Vogue Italia, Wedluxe, Reach, and Fresh.
Fashion clients include: Bootlegger, Sympli, Mia Melon, Noelle F, and The Sleep Shirt. As well as companies such as Air Canada, ET Canada, Vancouver Tourism, and the Vancouver 2010 Olympics(CTV).
To see more of Atefeh’s work, check out here website here: http://www.atefeh.ca/#!/page/492390/home