A distinct aggregation / A dynamic equivalent / A generous ethic of invention: Six writers respond to six sculptures

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Six broadsheets fanned out across a wooden surface. The covers have a text drawing that reads, "A Distinct Aggregation / A Dynamic Equivalent / A Generous Ethic of Invention: Six Writers Respond to Six Sculptures.” The letters are a muted blue-green colour on a white background. The text fills the page in all caps and was hand-lettered by Shannon. The spacing and size of the letters vary at times. The letter shapes are graphic with confident lines, made even smoother through the digitization process, but overall the text feels wobbly and was made without the goal of perfection, symmetry, or sameness.
Broadsheets from “A distinct aggregation / A dynamic equivalent / A generous ethic of invention: Six writers respond to six sculptures. With Anna Bowen, Angela Marie Schenstead, Crystal Mowry, Laura Burke, Catherine Frazee, Nicole Kelly Westman and Shannon Finnegan. Commissioned by Walter Phillips Gallery, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Title drawing by Shannon Finnegan.

I’m so excited to release this project into the world!

A distinct aggregation / A dynamic equivalent / A generous ethic of invention:  Six writers respond to six sculptures was commissioned by the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre.  Inspired by uninspired approaches to accessibility, it treats traditional audio description as a space for creative acts.

Writers Anna Bowen, Angela Marie Schenstead, Crystal Mowry, Laura Burke, Catherine Frazee and Nicole Kelly Westman each crafted thoughtful, generous responses to a public artwork on the Banff Centre campus.  Together these thoughts and words compose an audio piece that is available to stream from the Walter Phillips Gallery website and can also be heard on MP3 players that can be borrowed from the gallery’s front desk.

The work also exists in a visual format.  Artist Shannon Finnegan and I collaborated to create a broadsheet of transcriptions (pictured above).  The broadsheet includes six text drawings from the ongoing collaborative series A seat at the table, a slice of the pie, that grew from conversations about the practice of visual description.

This project continues to work on me, opening up questions and possibilities for visual description that may challenge sensory hierarchies, is rooted in pleasure, is individualized and particular, that talks back to a work, that memorializes what is no longer physically present, and that acknowledges the subjective.

I’m so grateful to the writers and artists who contributed to this project and all those who worked behind the scenes:  Jacqueline Bell, Caitlin Sutherland, Victoria Lessard, Ed Renzi, Nicolás Arévalo and Iga Gerolin.  Gratitude also to the Canada Council for the Arts.

The exhibition runs until September 27, 2020.

 

Five broadsheets are fanned on a wooden surface. On top one is open to page 32 / 33. On the left is a text drawing by Shannon that reads "A Generous Ethic of Invention." The letters are a muted blue-green colour on a white background and take up most of the page. There is a small mountain-like shape of white space above “invention” and below “ethic of.” This, and the slightly right-leaning letter “N’s” give it a sense of movement and aliveness. On the right is Nicole Kelly Westman's piece, "I am sorry I didn't call - A poem for a now-vacant site," her response to Sharon Moodie's "I don't want a massage, I want a miracle." Nicole's title was hand-lettered by Shannon, below a hand-drawn number 6. The all caps text is spread over three lines. Again the slightly off-kilter “n’s” create a sense of movement.