Swal-low was a light and ceramic based installation that explored transience and beauty. Consisting of a sea of delicately crafted and installed backlit ceramic tiles, the work intended to captivate the viewer with its surreal and dream-like qualities.

The swallow has had a variety of stories and associations throughout history; it has been known to reference awakening, guidance, and action. With this exhibition, Dylan McHugh hoped to give us a deeper understanding of these associations and the ways they are formulated. Embossed swallows glowed through the micro-thin ceramic material that each tile is made from. Viewers followed the path of a boardwalk surrounding the installation, engaging from many angles. 

Dylan McHugh is a Vancouver-based interdisciplinary artist. He received a BFA in visual art at NSCAD University and is a founding member of the artist collective DRIL. McHugh has exhibited in Canada and internationally. Recent exhibitions include: Measure Of Light (Dynamo Arts Association), Thru The Trapdoor (On Main Gallery) and Western (Kamloops Art Gallery)

Swal-low // Charo Neville

Mythologies of the swallow have appeared in disparate cultures and belief systems throughout history; references to the bird can be traced to the annals of ancient history. In the Book of the Dead, illustrations show how a pharaoh could transform his soul into a swallow, as Egyptians believed swallows to be the souls of the dead. In the Pyramid Texts, when speaking about a near death experience the pharaoh describes how he has “gone to the great island in the midst of the Field of Offerings on which the swallow gods alight; the swallows are the imperishable stars”. The bird also often appears in paintings of the solar Braque, standing on the prow to welcome the dawning sun. In Greek mythology swallows were associated with the goddess Aphrodite and oddly considered unlucky, but for the Romans, swallows were a symbol of Venus and regarded as lucky because they were believed to carry the souls of dead children. The symbol of the swallow appears strongly again in the Victorian era, as a representation of pledged love, often seen tattooed on the bodies of sailors to show that they would return to their loved ones. Aboriginal legends closely relate the swallow to the magical Thunderbird because it will fly before a thunderstorm arrives.

The swallow has been marveled for its cosmopolitan long-distance migratory patterns and keen adaptation to aerial feeding. It has evolved to hunt insects on the wing by developing a streamlined body and long pointed wings, which allow great maneuverability and endurance, as well as frequent periods of gliding. Understood as a sign of the end of winter, the arrival of the swallow is seen as a messenger of spring. Before migratory patterns were documented, the swallow was a predictor of the seasons – it was commonly believed that when swallows would disappear on mass, they had withdrawn to spend the winter under the ice at the bottom of lakes.

As if bird-watching from well established vantage points, viewers of Dylan McHugh’s Swal-low, can witness a flight (or a gulp) of swallows from above. Are they mid-flight, making passage to the other world? Or are they frozen in a liminal space? Made from individually crafted micro-thin translucent ceramic tiles that hover over a grid of white LED lights, the pathway is the gallery’s only source of light, a beacon that guides viewers to contemplate our ultimate mortality. Frequently working collaboratively, the process of developing this work allowed McHugh to explore phenomenological approaches to ideas of impermanence and the ineffable through his personal art practice.

Immersing the viewer in a sensorial experience, Swal-low spatially responds to the scale, orientation and layout of the existing architecture, while at the same time limiting the viewer’s perception of their environment to ambient light and the trajectory of the pathway itself. The pathway floats in space, too fragile to walk on; from the viewing platforms we are removed from the stability of the ground and transposed to an ethereal realm.

The swallow has also often referenced awakening. In this sense, McHugh’s Swal-low offers a meditative space, similar to the experience of awe when in nature — a reprieve from the clutter of the material world. Peering from above, as if standing at the edge of a lake at the brink of winter to assess the porousness of the edges of the icy shores and its ability to carry our weight, McHugh’s installation speaks to our trust in the fragility of life in the face of unknowing. Swal-low evokes the possibility of the existence of a state of stasis along the journey to the other side, like swallows resting in the frozen lake, suspended in time until the seasons change and they are released once again.

Noxious Sector is an ongoing collaborative endeavor by Canadian artists Ted Hiebert, Doug Jarvis, and Jackson 2Bears, dedicated to the exploration of alternative cognitive function, the paranormal and the absurd. Nightmare Inductions was an art installation and exhibition guiding participants through a meditative experience. Through sound, light projection, and photographs, Noxious Sector attempted to induce an altered mental state where imagination meets perception. Invited by a lulling sound of low bass tones, viewers were encouraged to lie down on yoga mats, put on headphones, and slip into an altered state specific to a common nightmare. The nightmare Noxious Sector selected was one in which one’s teeth fall out. Projections were used to stimulate brainwave patterns unique to the nightmare. Set in the opposite end of the gallery were evocative but staged self-portrait photographs, taken by Hiebert’s students, involving lost teeth and discomforted facial expressions.

Outside of the gallery, through a psychic and multimedia exploration, Noxious Sector reevaluated what it means to loiter, haunt, and occupy. Banners, flags, labels, and plaques positioned in Kelowna claimed specific areas as haunted. Noxious Sector found several areas in Kelowna that had public online surveillance access. The group placed banners with QR codes in each of those areas, each linked to a website with a public feed of that very location; if someone were to scan it, they would see themselves on their device.

Ted Hiebert is an interdisciplinary artist and theorist. His work examines the relationships between art, performance, and technology with a particular focus on the absurd, the paradoxical and the imaginary.  His individual and collaborative projects have been presented in galleries around the world, including, among others: The Judith & Norman Alix Art Gallery (Sarnia, CAN), Open Space (Victoria, CAN), Grunt (Vancouver, CAN), The Museum of Art (Seoul, KOR), The Center on Contemporary Art (Seattle, USA). He is Professor of Interdisciplinary Art and Director of the MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics at the University of Washington Bothell where he teaches classes on interdisciplinary practice and theory.

For more information about Hiebert’s work, visit his website.

Doug Jarvis is an artist and curator based in Victoria, BC. He is a founding member of the avatar performance art group Second Front and the Noxious Sector Art Collective. He also participates in Open Actions, an action-based performance art group that performs monthly in public spaces in Victoria. His individual and collective work explores absurdity, care, the paranormal, non-material entities and technology as a human attribute. Jarvis received an MFA in studio art from the University of Guelph, ON and is currently a sessional instructor in the UVic Visual Arts Department.

For more information about Jarvis’ work, visit his website.

Jackson 2bears is a Kanien’kehaka (Mohawk) multimedia installation/ performance artist and cultural theorist from Six Nations and Tyendinaga. 2bears has exhibited his work extensively across Canada in public galleries, museums and artist-run centres, as well as internationally in festivals and group exhibitions. 2bears holds a BA. in Art & Art History from the University of Toronto, as well as a Diploma in Fine Arts from Sheridan College, Oakville. He received his MFA from the University of Victoria. In 2012 2bears completed his PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Victoria. 2bears recently completed two terms as Audain Professor of Contemporary Art of the Pacific Northwest at the University of Victoria; he is currently Associate Professor of Art Studio and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts Research & Technology at the University of Lethbridge, AB. —Treaty 7, Blackfoot Territory.

For more information about 2bears’ work, visit his website.

Bracken Corlett is an interdisciplinary artist who works in continuum with the iconography of his ancestors, the Wuikinuxv and Klahoose People. His exhibition Wuulhu explored a digital fusion of traditional mediums and icons, featuring new works in painting, drawing, and sculpture and also introducing sound, video and live performance work. The featured work was a remix. It was a readaptation and rediscovery of culture, spirit and language that covered generations. Threatened by colonialism, there are only a handful of Wuikila speakers around today. Wuulhu, a Wuikila word, directly translated into English means “to fuse together”. This word is a key component to Corlett’s multimedia arts practice, and was, as well, a key component of the exhibition. Wuulhu consisted of several paintings, sculptures, and videos.

Sculptures consisted of a handcrafted traditional mask, as well as a non-traditional mask made for a live DJ performance, which included various regalia from that same concert. His video work melded performative west-coast dance and painting with found footage and electronic music that he produced. Corlett’s paintings varied in size and content, including imagery of frogs, constellations, and thunderbirds, combining some with pop-cultural images of the queen. Northwest Coast Native artist, Corlett has been working in traditional mediums such as red and yellow cedar and has also painted with natural pigments and carved with traditional tools. On the other end of the spectrum is his digital practice, which involves work in sound, video, photography and graphic design. In his work Corlett has often chosen to keep the digital and the traditional separate, sometimes causing a fracture in the artist’s workflow. In Wuulhu, Corlett’s work aimed to bridge the traditional and the contemporary, unwinding in the place between, while considering the relationship and side effects of technical experimentation and tradition.

Bracken Hanuse Corlett is an Northwest Coast multi-media artist hailing from the Wuikinuxv and Klahoose Nations. He works with video, sound, painting, carving/sculpture, writing and performance. His work deals with themes of cultural reclamation and survival, identity politics, hybridity, and decolonization. Much of his work is relevant to his Northwest Coast Indigenous roots and he is spending much of his time these days exploring the stories, language, songs, and art of his people. He is also inspired by art movements like agit-pop, manga, the dadas and other diverse forms of expression.

To see more of Bracken’s works, you can check out his Instagram @wuulhu

Pierre Leichner is an artist-researcher with thirty years of experience as an academic psychiatrist. In his exhibition, They say she is bipolar and he’s got OCD: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders Text Re-Revised and Related Texts, Leichner used his skills as both an artist and a psychiatrist as he carved, sculpted and altered mental health diagnosis texts to create sculptures that investigate questions surrounding the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders and related psychiatric books. He created book sculptures and paper cast objects, while documenting the process through photography, video and sound. Second-hand desks, library cases and tables were used to display molded tools, objects, and altered journals, all made from psychiatric books.

Leichner’s interdisciplinary approach led to the creation of plush DSM guide dogs on leashes that could be wheeled around the space. Another well-received access-point was DSM Diagnosis fortune cookies, which each contained a diagnosis of a different psychological disorder. The gallery held an immense amount of his work, including video documentation of DSM paper crane folding, archaeological photography of books that he sculpted in relief, and paper molds of faces. 

This exhibition coincided with the launch of the next DSM (V) in 2013, a text that often stands as the singular authority on shaping psychological language and thought in North America, and increasingly internationally. Discouraged by the unquestioned and unbalanced use of modes of intervention by health-care providers and the diminishing of humanness in healthcare, Leichner addressed biological, psychological, social/cultural, political and spiritual issues using a multi-sensorial and interdisciplinary approach.

Pierre Leichner was born in Romania in 1947 to Hungarian parents who fled to France where he grew up until the age of 13. They then moved to Montreal. Leichner went to McGill for a Bachelor in Biochemistry, he obtained a Masters from the University of Strasbourg in 1969 researching Neurochemistry. Leichner went on to become a physician and specialized in psychiatry. After graduating from Queen's University and a year of research at the University of California in San Diego he started his academic career in Winnipeg at the University of Manitoba in 1978. Since then he occupied several teaching, research, clinical and administrative posts at McGill, Queen's and currently the University of British Columbia.

In 2002 he began on a part time basis, the Bachelor of Fine arts program at The Emily Carr Institute of Arts and Design. He received his BFA in 2007. To date Leichner’s work has reflected his view of the artist as an observer and commentator on society. He uses surprise, paradox and humor in his work to interest the viewers. Both the Arts and the Sciences share in their pursuit of existential meaning. In this, his interest will continue, perhaps bridging the gap between his scientific and artistic careers. Leichner obtained a Masters in Fine Arts from Concordia University in 2011 and is now beginning his career as a teacher and a practicing artist.

For more information about Leichner and his work, visit his website.

José Luis Torres assembled a site-specific gallery installation using locally found and recycled construction materials. Created by elaborating on do-it-yourself constructions, referencing precarious architecture and the notion that life is a game of survival, Torres’ projects are a mixture of sculpture and organic architecture functioning on intuition. Torres went out into the community looking for cardboard, a throw-away material he quickly associated with Kelowna.  Inside of the gallery, he assembled and mounted floor-to-ceiling cardboard constructions. Though made from geometric boxes and containers, the works became organic shapes, not unlike foliage or trees. As an improvised installation, the boxes formed a spontaneous architecture inspired by the banal status of cardboard as a material. Two large forms consumed corners of the gallery, with a third form amassed on the floor. The sculptures engaged with the audience’s navigation of space, forcing alternative pathways.

José Luis Torres was born in Argentina and has a Bachelor's Degree in Visual Arts, a Master's Degree in Sculpture and training in architecture and integrating art with architecture. He has been living and working in Quebec since 2003.

For more information about Torres’ work, please visit his website.