The STAG

Introducing... The STAG Library!

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 01:22:48 -0400

FRIDAY, March 23rd, 2012 | 7pm

The Strathcona Art Gallery is very proud to introduce…

The STAG Library - http://thestaglibrary.tumblr.com/

A semi-public, semi-private lending and reference library run out of the Strathcona home of Aja Rose Bond and Gabriel Saloman. The library contains a variety of printed matter and audio available for lending and reference, including thousands of books, magazines, zines, comics, pdfs, cassettes, cds and vinyl records. The library maintains regular open hours on Sundays from noon to five and hosts occasional events each month.

The STAG also offers a publication residency to facilitate research, composition and development of printed matter by artists, writers and others.
We encourage inquiries and visits.

Come celebrate our humble opening as we co-create this project with you, our diverse communities of artists, friends, activists, neighbors, students and (for the time being) anonymous fellow travelers.

FRIDAY, March 23rd, 2012 | 7pm

Check - http://thestaglibrary.tumblr.com/ - for more information about the project and upcoming events in March and April. (While you’re there - “follow” that blog… after this announcement this website will become an archive and we will no longer be posting upcoming events here)

AND

visit us during our open hours

SUNDAYS, 12-5pm

826 East Pender St. (b/w Hawks and Campbell, through the metal gate, house in the back)

STAG | Down with Dressing Down! Dress-Up Gang! & The Last Stag Party | Saturday, July 30

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 17:29:00 -0400

DOWN WITH DRESSING DOWN! DRESS-UP GANG!

Saturday, July 30, 3-6pm

Dress-Up Gang is a proposed affinity group for liberation and the development of increasingly more and more fabulous versions of one’s self through solidarity, freak-fashion exploration, mutual aid, wardrobe and accessory sharing, emotional support, reflection and critique, photo opportunities, stylist-skill-building, make-up tips, alteration, consultation, influence pooling and power in numbers.
The first convening of this group-to-be will coincide the the STAG’s (Strathcona Art Gallery) last event in it’s current incarnation.

Meet Saturday, July 30, from 3-6pm at the STAG – 826 E. Pender St.

Bring, clothes, wigs, mags, dreams, anything you might want to try and the courage to try it.

Following this event, the STAG will co-host it’s first and only video dance party with the willing, newly initiated members of the Dress-Up Gang. Guests will be supported and encouraged to bring and/or to explore their fabulous selves with the expertise and resources available.

The Last STAG Party
Saturday, July 30, 8-Midnight

After an amazing first year of exhibitions, events and artist residencies, the STAG will be closing its doors to prepare for it’s transformation into an exciting new space. Come celebrate endings & new beginnings with our first and only video dance party, featuring secret surprise DJs. We’re starting early and ending early so come on time and stay till the end! Dress as fabulous as you possibly can - and maybe attend the first convening of Dress-Up Gang! earlier in the afternoon…

…

The Gestare Art Collective | Reflections on the Womb Walk Project | Saturday, July 23, 2-4pm

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 18:15:18 -0400

Reflections on the Womb Walk Project Artist talk with the Gestare Art Collective (Barbara Bickel, Nané Ariadne Jordan & Medwyn McConachy)
Sat. July 23 at 2pm 826 East Pender St., Vancouver BC, 604 564 3261

This talk launches the Gestare Art Collective 2011 residency at the STAG which will take place July 25 - 29.

Womb Walks are labyrinth walking and sometimes labyrinth making rituals that take place in different geographic locations where the members of the Gestare Collective are. Following the lead of Nané’s birthday labyrinth tradition we walked (and made) labyrinths on each others birthdays in parallel time in 2011.

“As many of you know, the labyrinth has been significant to me in relation to re-claiming ancient women’s knowledge lineages of my middle name ‘Ariadne’ – priestess of the labyrinth with her guiding thread that leads us into and out of mysteries of birth/life/death, through womb-entering the labyrinth’s sacred geo-mantics of the Mother.” - Nané

http://ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v13n02/articles/bickel/index.html

We walk with the intention of supporting each other in placental wombworkings on these anniversary days of our births—the day we left our earth mother’s wombs. We invite others to take up this practice as a way to support each other on the paths we walk on this earth.

To see the project go to http://www.gestareartcollective.com/womb-walks.php

Barbara Bickel | Oracular Co-Encounters | Thursday July 21, 7-9pm

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 20:20:00 -0400

The STAG is honored to host Barbara Bickel, a visiting artist and educator from Illinois who has a long history in Vancouver and Calgary. She will be presenting the results of her residency - Oracular Co-Encounters - with an event at the STAG

Thursday, July 21, 7-9pm (with a brief Artist Talk at 7:30).

Additional visits to the gallery may be arranged from July21-24 by emailing the STAG at diademdiscos a/t gmail d/o/t com. Other public events, including an additional artist talk with the Gestare Arts Collective will be announced soon.

Read more about the work in Barbara’s own words below…

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The STAG residency with its mandate of freeing art is an opportunity to complete an installation of spontaneous artworkings that respond to the commercialized phallic driven world of contemporary art. With intense physical gestures I draw and move within the trauma of the art world’s edges, tracing and retracing the rectangular form of the mail-in subscription card found within the art magazine.

Densely drawn lines of black and blue, red, pink, green, purple and yellow oil pastel colours mask the return postage emblem and blanket the publisher’s address. Its intended transport and return, with the promise of payment for future connection to the art world, is interrupted and rerouted back to its matrixial origins—the sacred act itself of making art. Rendered unreadable in the English language of business, an oracular voice emerges in response to the artworkings. Non-verbal acoustic sounds emerge from my throat, my belly, as a layer of sound is drawn onto the image, offering com-passionate counsel to those willing to listen to the submerged voice of knowing and unknowing from the matrixial sphere (to listen to the layered sound drawings of art oracles go to http://www.gestareartcollective.com/barbara-bickel.php)

The art and writing of artist, psychoanalyst and theorist Bracha L. Ettinger (2004), who has developed a theory based in matrixial borderspaces, offers an aesthetic and ethical feminine-based embodied and relational language to articulate what has been suppressed and lost within the phallic sphere.

To be an artist operating in the matrixial sphere is a fragile endeavor where “the future traumatically meets the past… and the outside meets inside (p. 77).” As I draw and sound my way through/with/beyond/behind this series, I engage what Ettinger calls metramorphosis:

a process of inter-psychic communication and transformation that transgresses borders of the individual subject and takes place between several entities. It is a joint awakening of unthoughtful-knowledge on the borderline, as well as an inscription of the encounter in traces that open a space in and along the borderline itself.

As I encounter the momentarily opened spaces of the borderlines that separate me from communication with others in the phallic sphere of the art world I reach out in these artworkings with radical trust toward other.

From the borders and edges of the phallic sphere of the contemporary art world oracular movements, images and sounds from the matrixial sphere continue to lead us into/through/beside/behind the trauma of erasure and separation, returning us to precious aesthetic and ethical moments of interconnectivity, and jointness in difference.

It is my desire that the visual art conjoined with the oracular sound experiences be encountered and engaged by others while at the STAG. While in process Celeste Snowber and Lynn Fels are bringing their graduate students from her Simon Fraser University Arts Based Inquiry course for an interactive visit. I am looking forward to what I know they will add to my own inquiry process. The end of my residency will include a closing public reception on Thursday July 21, 7-9pm.

Barbara Bickel, July 13, 2011

Ettinger, Bracha L. (2004). Weaving a woman artist with-in the matrixial encounter-event. Theory, Culture and Society, 21(1), 69-93.

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Barbara Bickel is a visual and performing artist, researcher, and educator. An Assistant Professor in Art Education and Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA she teaches art as an inquiry and meaning making process. Her arts-based Ph.D. in Art Education from The University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada was awarded the Arts Based Educational Research Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association (ABER SIG) in 2009. Her research interests include arts-based inquiry methods, matrixial theory, collaboration, community-based art, the body voice, relational aesthetics, experimental video art, spirituality, feminism, women’s leadership, restorative and transformative learning and performance ritual. Her art and performance rituals have been exhibited and performed in Canada and the US since 1991. She co-founded The Centre Gallery (1995-2001), a non-profit women’s focused gallery in Calgary, Alberta. She is a co-founder and member of the Gestare Art Collective, Her articles on arts-based inquiry and a/r/tography have been published in numerous journals and book chapters. To view her art portfolio and arts-based research on-line visit http://www.barbarabickel.com

The Gestare Art Collective was officially formed in 2009 by co-founders Barbara Bickel, Medwyn McConachy, Nané Ariadne Jordan and Wende Bartley. Their collaborative beginnings began in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 2007 through sharing their art and spiritual life practices with each other. Entering creative and ritual space at artist residencies at Artscape Gibraltar Point led to the formation of the collective.

Their artworkings are visual, textural, vocal, performative, moving, ephemeral, earth-related and time/space based. The source of their artistic collaborations comes from a mutual engagement with the Divine Feminine and the Earth, gestated in the labyrinthine container of wombspace Living in different geographic locations in North America they share individual and collective art practices and develop collaborative projects through digital on-line communication at a distance and at residencies. Visit http://www.gestareartcollective.com

Gestare is Latin for the verb “to carry” in the womb. As women committed to living as process artists in relationship with each other, the earth, cosmos and all its inhabitants, we honour and practice gestation as a form of inquiry and pedagogy.

First gathering of the Gestare Art Collective in the STAG...

Wed, 13 Jul 2011 20:19:00 -0400

First gathering of the Gestare Art Collective in the STAG library on Wed. July 13^th.

Left to right in photo: Nané Jordan, Barbara Bickel & Medwyn McConachy

Sarah Foulquier & Sylvain Daval | A Dime and a Shoe String | Thursday, July 7

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 01:41:00 -0400

Sarah Foulquier & Sylvain Daval

« A dime and a shoe string »

Thursday, July 7

6pm-8pm

The STAG

826 E Pender St.

The STAG is pleased to invite you to the launch of « A dime and a shoe string », a new publication produced by Sarah Foulquier and Sylvain Daval.

This event will end Sarah Foulquier and Sylvain Daval’s 6 month residency at the STAG where they have developed their project - Self Shelf Swap - in collaboration with an international team of collaborators and the STAG. The project’s mandate is to create a network of individual micro-libraries available to everyone from a common shared catalogue - centralized on the Internet. The development of Self Shelf Swap anticipates the Strathcona Art Gallery’s transition in Fall 2011 into a semi-public library, event space and reading room. The manuals comprising « A dime and a shoe string » correspond to the first version (0.1) of the project. As the name suggests, it is a bricolage of experiences and reflections on developing the project and its first technical developments. Symbolically and effectively in a professional catalogue system the manual is the first book of a library; it is for Foulquier and Daval a discreet way to introduce themselves (in)to our shelves. This publication combines two manuals: How to do your library and How to participate to the STAG library. It is a limited edition of 50 and will be free and available to all who attend. 

The Self Shelf Swap team is composed of Foulquier and Daval, along with fellow members Sebastien Feugère, artist and computer developer, and Yves Saint-larry, graphist, both of whom live and work in France, and Sydney Hart, an artist and theoretician who lives and works in the UK.

Sarah Foulquier lives and works in Vancouver. Born in Avignon, France, she holds a DNAP (diplôme national d’arts plastiques) from the École Des Beaux-Arts De Lyon and a DNSEP (diplôme national supérieur d’arts plastiques) from the École Nationale Des Beaux Arts de Bourges. Foulquier has participated in exhibitions at the Centre D’art Contemporain (Meymac, FR), La Calavera (Lyon, FR), Chantier Public (Lyon, FR), the Roger Tator Gallery (Lyon, FR) and Sous-location (Montréal, QC). She had a solo show in 2010 at Western Front, Vancouver.

Sylvain Daval was born in Aix-en Provence, France. He studied visual art at the National Art School of Bourges, and at the Art School of Avignon, as well as music composition at the Conservatory of Music of Bourges. His installations and sound performances have been included in several exhibitions in Canada and Europe. In recent years his practice turned towards collaborative forms and in-process pieces, such as the Carle Colline Collection, the Lower Mainland Painting Co (LMPC) and the Temporary Gallery of Reproduced.

http://selfshelfswap.org/ 

Guadalupe Martinez | Walk Strathcona | May/June 2011

Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:38:43 -0400

The Strathcona Art Gallery is pleased to introduce it’s Artist-in-Residence for May and June of 2011, Guadalupe Martinez.

Guadalupe Martinez is an interdisciplinary Argentine artist currently based in Vancouver, B.C. Her work is a constant exploration of -and- experimenting with identity, place and materials. Informed by her native culture and her interest in language, psychology, mysticism, literature, music and craft she develops a body of work that takes form mostly through installations, video and performance art.

As a recent immigrant to Canada, the interrelationship between body, self and territory has become the main focus in her practice. This interest is stemmed in the desire to understand subject-object relational dynamics within a conceptual framework that includes otherness, hybridization and deterritorialization as the main concerns.

Her work has been shown in Argentina, Mexico and Canada.

During her residency at the STAG Guadalupe has initiated a project called Walk Strathcona. This is the first iteration of an ongoing exploration she is calling The Peregrinaje to Pilgrimage Series

The Peregrinaje to Pilgrimage Series is an intention to symbolize the continuous journey for the search of Identity and Place. Through this embodied metaphor I want to address the physical migration and cultural crossing that most people in my generation experience, and how the confronting of uprooting and deterritorialization informs the subject-object relationship as inhabiting a post-post-modern capitalist culture.By taking the role of the pilgrim (subject) I will establish a cultural, mystical, physical and intellectual relationship with a temporary foreign environment (STAG- Strathcona) and sublime, through an artistic act the struggle and alienation that we are submitted to when negotiating our position (gender, class, cultural background, cosmology, etc) in a predetermined territory (ground, soil, land).
Guadalupe will be continuing to work through this project and there may be opportunities for Strathcona residents to participate in different ways. Check he wepage devoted to the project to find out more information:

http://walkstrathcona.blogspot.com/

Patrick Blaeser and Emilio Rojas | On Matters of Sensitivity and/or How The Dripping Turned into a Flood | Thursday, April 28th

Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:37:11 -0400

The STAG | Patrick Blaeser and Emilio Rojas | APR 28
———————————————
On Matters of Sensitivity and/or How The Dripping Turned into a Flood

Patrick Blaeser and Emilio Rojas

Thursday, April 28, 2011
7:00 to 10:00 pm.
826 E. Pender Vancouver, BC

The STAG is pleased to announce On Matters of Sensitivity and/or How The Dripping Turned into a Flood, new collaborative works by Vancouver-based artists Patrick Blaeser and Emilio Rojas.

The show is the result of a month long residency dealing with ideas of sovereignty, secrecy, and national statehood. The subject matter departs from the recent disclosure of sensitive information released to the public by WikiLeaks for scrutiny and debate, which has created a forum for the discussion of a freer and more transparent society. The pieces reflect on both personal and public sensitivities, whether that be the sensitivities between two lovers; or that sensitivity that comes from a document only meant for military eyes. Blaeser-Rojas evaluate when this material should be open to the public or remain secret, or if all information should be openly disclosed.

The research will result in a series of sculptural works most of them contained inside lockets wore by performers throughout the night, with different “rules of engagement”. An attempt to be critical of interactivity within contemporary art, diplomacy, and military procedures. The locket, refers to dual motifs of love and politics that serve to connect the two vignettes that comprise the structure of the exhibition. Other work involving texts, actions, sculpture and video will engage the domestic space of the STAG and the tension of its situation within the realm of the public and private.

Blaeser - Rojas have been collaborating since 2010. After the completion of their STAG residency a limited edition publication based on the exhibition will become available. People are invited to participate by bringing their own lockets to the show.

Patrick Blaeser

Patrick Blaeser has a BFA in Photography form ECUAD and MFA from the Glasgow School of Art. He uses a variety of mediums including photography, textiles and illustration and to express apocalyptic and Utopian attitudes. Blaeser’s practice consists of examining society to pick apart issues through the lens of possible futures and pasts. By reevaluating these fictions he tries to discover new routes for understanding and adjusting those ideas and how they may aid the present moment. Blaeser currently lives in Vancouver BC and has shown work in the UK, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and the U.S.A.

Emilio Rojas
Emilio Rojas was born in Mexico City. He is an interdisciplinary artists working mostly in performance, video, installation, and text. His works require the participation of the viewer, in order to set in motion the metaphors that unveil the intricacy of his art. The intrinsic relation with the body has been both his subject matter and medium. Exploring the mental and physical limits of his being, Emilio reevaluates activism, gender, politics, traditions, ritual and sexuality. His works have been exhibited in United States, Canada, Mexico, Austria, England, Germany, and Australia. Emilio currently lives in Vancouver, B.C. where he is completing his BFA at ECUAD.
826 E Pender St., Strathcona, Vancouver, BC / Coast Salish Territory

{The STAG is not wheelchair accessible. We sincerely apologize for this exclusion.}

the PERCEIVERS | March 13 - 31, 2011

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:53:00 -0400

The STAG is proud to be host to the debut group show of the Perceivers. Formed by members of Spectrum Society for Community Living’s Graffiti program, the Perceivers are a multi-disciplinary tour-de-force. Since Graffiti’s founding in 2004 members of the group have explored mixed media collage, painting, sculpture, music and performance. Through the facilitation of Aja Rose Bond, Jane Panek and others, various members of the group have developed a large body of work, a portion of which will be on display at the STAG during March.

Stanley Wong will be exhibiting drawings and paintings featuring his highly detailed Sim-City like 3 dimensional city-scapes composed of interconnected geometric shapes that stretch endlessly across alien topographies. Also on view will be his custom t-shirts and a wall size display of his daily recordings which feature detailed accounts of people and events embedded within coded shapes and signs. The show will also showcase a variety of work by Eddie Choi including several large paintings featuring abstract color studies, a variety of humorously surreal drawings and a display of his “Chi Chi” work - labor intensive transcriptions of entire novels, obscured by color pencil and systematically cut into confetti. The show will also include drawings, collage and writings by other participants, past and present.

The exhibition will be available to view during open hours or by appointment.

Open hours 2-5pm
Sunday, March 20th & Sunday, March 27th

The STAG | Think Tank | “In what ways can Developmentally Disabled Adults be supported in exploring creativity and connecting with others who share their interests?” | Thursday, March 31, 7pm

As a related event, the STAG will be hosting a Think Tank led by Aja Rose Bond. Having spent years working with DD people and other marginalized communities to facilitate the exploration of creativity, Aja is interested in opening up a conversation with anyone else who’s interested including artists, families, clients and other people in similar fields of work. Other examples of programs designed to support and facilitate creativity for DD adults will be discussed including Creativity Explored and Creative Growth in the Bay Area as well as the potential for similar studio / gallery projects to exist here in Vancouver.

Photo

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:40:10 -0400

Photo

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 23:12:14 -0400

Performers at the Perceivers opening On Saturday, March 12, we...

Sun, 13 Mar 2011 21:59:00 -0400

Performers at the Perceivers opening

On Saturday, March 12, we help a private opening event for the artists, their families and friends. We were very lucky to have performances by Rapster Dallas, Adam Hooge, Jane Panek and Karen Donhauer and the vivacious Amanda Peters. Thanks to everyone who came out to support these amazing, talented people.

A few months back we had the pleasure of meeting Eden Vaudry at...

Sun, 27 Feb 2011 00:51:00 -0500

A few months back we had the pleasure of meeting Eden Vaudry at Blim on the opening night of her exhibition there. We immediately found agreement that we should find a way to bring her magic to the STAG and the idea of Sugar of Stones, an edible and non-edible sculpture dinner, was born that very night. On February 14th, 2011 Eden, the STAG and dozen guests shared an amazing evening of highly sculptured deserts, delicious drinks, outbursts of noise and laughter, and a crazed sugar rush that crashed into wonderful late night conversation. Among the delicious highlights there were:

Chocolate Volcano Pie
Buddha sitting in a garden of granola and fruit
Pineapple Chocolate Sculptures
Plum Wine in Cucumber Cups
Scented Fabric Cakes
Straweberry and Cream Puff Sci-Fi Architecture
Clay Sushi Cakes
Sugar Cereal Tree Ornaments
A group impovised noise jam
Gay Tea for Dark Times
more, more, more

Thank you to Codrin for sending these beautiful photos from the...

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:50:59 -0500

Thank you to Codrin for sending these beautiful photos from the event. Thank you to Jordan, Allison, Heather, Amberleigh, Allison, Sarah, Sylvain and of course Eden for making it such an unforgettable night.

Crampin’ Style Opening

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:26:00 -0500

Crampin’ Style Opening

Crampin' Styled STAG

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:26:00 -0500

Nxc Hxghxs’ “debut retrospective” was an amazing success for all of us. Not only did Nxc cram every crevice of the STAG full with his amazing work, but lots of wonderful people - first timers, strangers and good friends - all came to grab a peep at what was on display. Though I’m certain some folks stayed away due to some of the content, those who came seemed very pleased. We certainly enjoyed having the product of 10 years of Isolated Now Waves, not mention the dozens of video images and collages, all over the walls. During the opening visitors brought various tapes and cds down off the wall to play on our stereo and lots of eyes were glued onto “Crampin’ Style #3”, the show’s catalog and the STAG’s newest publication.

Over the course of the exhibition we had a few great events. There was a screening of short videos that Nxc and his collaborators have made over the last decade. The room was packed with people who helped make the films, starring, scripting, editing and co-directing. At least one member of the “Spandex Girls” was rumored to be in attendance. Special thanks to Jesse Mckee for helping make the night possible. A week later we held a Record Potluck with lots of friends and neighbors dropping by to play everything from the Frumpies to Mayhem to psychotic Japanese noise and acoustic guitar collaborations. Lots of soda, vegan cocktail wieners and noise was consumed.

Keep your eyes peeled for any one of Nxc’s many amazing bands - Nun Un, Shearing Pinx, N.213 and more - as many of them will be playing around Vancouver and beyond in the coming months.

Crampin’ Style at The STAG

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 02:26:00 -0500

Crampin’ Style at The STAG

Nxc Hxghxs | Crampin' Style | Thursday, January 20th

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 23:55:34 -0500

The STAG presents…

Nxc Hxghxs | CRAMPIN’ STYLE | Artworks from 1999-2011

Thursday, January 20th | 7pm-8pm | Parental discretion advised

The STAG is proud to present the debut solo exhibition by Nxc Hxghxs, Crampin’ Style, a veritable onslaught of exacto-fetishism, neurotic/erotic assemblage and raw self-portraiture. For years Nxc’s artwork has defined the aesthetic of turn-of-the-century No Wave and Noise in Vancouver, gracing the wide array of bricolage that he has produced for his numerous collaborative and solo musical projects including Shearing Pinx, Channels 3 & 4, N.213, Pompoir, In Flux, Nun Un, Black Dicks and many more. Much of this work is represented by his private press record label Isolated Now Waves, with over 200 releases on vinyl, cassette and cd.

Crampin’ Style will feature original works on paper including dozens of collages that have appeared on releases from the I.N.W. catalog. Nxc’s ongoing video practice will be represented with the inclusion of his low-camp lo-fi feature length masterpiece Perversion. Also on view will be a nearly complete display of the I.N.W. catalog. In addition, the STAG is proud to be releasing a special publication for the show: a half-letter B&W zine with full color cover, texts, interviews and more. From his collages to his video imagery, Nxc’s practice wears its punk-dada heritage proudly; the video damaged offspring of Bruce LaBruce, Gee Vaucher, Richard Kern, Linder and a hundred raging riot grrl/outpunk zinesters.

Please join us for any and all of these related events…

Jan 20 (Th) | 7pm-10pm | Opening Party

Jan 23 (Su) | 7pm | Screening: Premier screening of short videos by Nxc Hxghxs.

Jan 30 (Su) | 7pm | Record Potluck: Bring something to listen to and something to eat.

All events are at the STAG, 826 E. Pender St. in Strathcona

The Month in Review pt.3: Heather Martin

Sun, 16 Jan 2011 23:50:41 -0500

If December seemed at all quiet for the STAG it was only for lack of exhibitions but not lack of activity. Our space had its share of Think Tanks, but the gallery’s most important role was as host to our second artist-in-residence: Heather Martin.

Most folks will know Heather as a fashion designer and educator who has done amazing hybrid fashion/artworks under the moniker mono. Most recently Heather has been hosting various pop-up stores at her monoshop.

In her own words…

mono is a succession of capsule series and projects which attempt to explore the spaces between art, craft, design and fashion aiming to redefine the categorical convention of these genres as well as their ideals, content, norms, and expectations. The work stands for more than just a cycle of endless products and seasons, it is a stand against the complacency within the fashion ideal.

mono is designed by Heather Martin & is situated on the west coast of Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia. Each item is either handcrafted in studio or locally produced.

During her residency at the STAG, Heather used the space/time to work through the conceptual development for an upcoming film project. During her time here she attempted to work through the the character, costume & sculptural elements to this project.
In previous works she has explored the topic of fashion & architecture or clothing in relation to space. With this film project she hopes to delve further into this idea.

Both the STAG and Heather were very happy with the experience. We promise to follow up with more information about how the project progresses and possibly an interview with Heather about her work. Thanks Heather!

The Month in Review pt.2: Free Art!

Wed, 12 Jan 2011 03:59:00 -0500

While we know that this happened a bit more than a month ago, it is important (for us anyways) to revisit our Free Art! event. It was quite a success. A steady stream of friends, strangers and neighbors came through our door with their hands full of art to give and to take home with them. For some this was a very strange idea, and for others it made perfect sense. The politics behind what we were trying to do was loud and clear for some folks and lost others. As much as we thought we were drawing a line in the snow, some folks just saw it as fun and a great way to let go of old art. What can we say, they’re right. It was obviously cathartic for a lot of folks to give away art that they’d made and held onto for too long. I hope that someone else out there is inspired as we were to invoke the spirit of the Potlatch and discover the power of giving and letting go. I think folks need something like this.