site reading: The University of Regina and First Nations University of Canada Faculty Show

December 10, 2005 to March 19, 2006

Every five years the MacKenzie Art Gallery has the privilege of presenting the works of the University of Regina Faculty to the larger Regina community. This exhibition brings together for the second time artists and theorists from Visual Art, Media, Production and Studios, and the First Nations University of Canada. With recurring allusions to place and identity, the exhibition situates both the viewer and the maker in a contemporary prairie context and engages the questions of how location and experience influence practice.

The title site reading refers not only to physical location, but also to the academic title of "reader", a term more commonly used in England than Canada. The title "reader" gives an appropriate, if simple, description of university faculty as those who are engaged deeply with language and image. They are the deep fertile ground into which information seeps and stirs. The title makes reference as well to the musician's practice of translating symbol to sound. In this exhibit, the works translate the experience of this location, this time, and this community into a variety of media. Employing both tradidtional techniques and innovative technologies, the artists reveal their desires to challenge, to play, to stimulate, and to explode.

Since its inception in 1953 as an addition to Regina College, the MacKenzie Art Gallery has played an important role in bringing to the public the activities of the university's art departments. Although now an autonomous institution, the MacKenzie retains strong ties with the university through cooperative programming and the presentation of graduating student exhibtions. This current exhibition is a welcome opportunity to extend that relationship and facilitate a wider dialogue between the various art departments and the location community.

Faculty represented in the exhibition include: Sarah Abbott, Diane Hancherow Anderson, Judy Jo Anderson, Ruth Chambers, Jack Cowin, Dennis Evans, David Garneau, Holly Fay, Charlie Fox, Marsha Kennedy, Rachelle Viader Knowles, Rory MacDonald, Kim Morgan, John Noestheden, Lionel Peyachew, Wendy Peart, Gordon Pepper, Darrell Prohor, Elaine Pain, Christine Ramsay, Gerald Saul, Joan Scaglione, Leesa Streifler, Sean Whalley and Mark Wihak.

Seema Goel
Guest Curator

Image Credit:

Ruth Chambers
More Than Matter, 2005
porcelain, halogen lighting and wooden shelf

site reading: The University of Regina and First Nations University of Canada Faculty Show

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