Past Programming

2008 October 16th - November 14th A World is a Model of the World

Yam Lau

In these recent works, representational space is reconstituted within the order of the virtual. For example, in Room: An Extension real time video footage of my daily routine is composed according to the architectural schema of my room in virtual space. This virtual expression of my room allows my actions to be viewed from multiple angles simultaneously. Private action becomes public performance. The real time/space of the video is enfolded with a different spatial-temporality in virtual space. In this sense, Room: An Extension is an attempt to complicate different forms of spatial-temporal expressions. Yam Lau

2008 September 9th - October 3rd Metalogos

Curated by: Mark Sutherland

Christian Bok, Paul Dutton, Nobuo Kubota,  Beth Learn, Steve McCaffery, Sylvia Ptak, W. Mark Sutherland, Francesca Vivenza, Darren Wershler-Henry

Metalogos, meaning “after words” or “beyond words”, is an international touring-exhibition of Canadian intermedia and language-based, contemporary art blurring the borders of poetry, music, and visual art. The Metalogos  exhibition features objects, bookworks, video, installations, audio-recordings, and public performances. While the entire exhibition is intended as a formal presentation of cross-disciplinary practices, the individual pieces selected for this exhibition are specifically chosen to create a dialogue between materials and media in a celebration of language.

2008 July 3 - July 12 Act(ivat)ion

Anna Madelska, Wendy McIntyre, Laura Mitrow, Kerry Riordan, Jennifer Robertson

An exhibition of emerging London based artists. Act(ivat)ion is an annual exhibition at FCG which supports critical, emerging art practice in London, Ontario.\

Act(ivat)ion locations:
Forest City Gallery - July 3 - July 12, 2008
London Arts Council: Viz Biz - August 4 - September 25, 2008

2008 May 30 - June 27 Driving in the Landscape

Curated by: Derek Liddington / essay by: Dagmara Genda

William Noah / Stephen Lavigne / Z'otz* Collective

London is a city both physically and symbolically divided by its bridges, waterways, roads, railways and highways. Consequently, seemingly simple labels such as ‘East of Adelaide’, ‘Kipps Lane’ and ‘Manor Park’ have entered our vernacular as markers of margins, boundaries and displacements. The exhibition Driving in the Landscape attempts to map notions of displacement, migration, immigration, isolation, and Canadiana within an urban landscape that is often presented as culturally unified and even homogenous. The works of artists Stephen Lavigne, William Noah, the Z’otz* collective, and the essay by Dagmara Genda, are interpretations of their own urban and cultural ‘landscapes’ through visual and textual forms. The diverse practices of these artists offer a rare grouping of cultural and generational perspectives. The term perspective is an important one for this exhibition. It includes not only the range of perspectives offered by the artists involved but also the local youth the exhibition seeks to engage in artistic collaboration. As a component of the exhibition, local youth work with regional and national artists in a dialogue that may open wider perspectives and employ art as a vessel for social exchange.

2008 April 11 - May 16 a local yokel legend

Katie Clark and Fan-Ling Suen

The Forest City Gallery is pleased to present a local yokel legend featuring the work of artists Katie Clark and Fan-Ling Suen.

2008 April 11 - May 16 How - to

Phil Delisle & J-D Boudreau

The Forest City Gallery is pleased to present how - to featuring the work of artists J-D Boudreau and Phil Delisle. The works of Boudreau and Delisle engage with the gallery through their comical sensibilities and self-consciousness as artists. The ‘white-cube’ is traditionally understood as a space for visual contemplation and negotiation. One enters the gallery space as a place of finality – stripped of the artistic process and lineage of the studio. How-to challenges the ‘viewing-pattern’ set out by traditional art making through site-specific installation and analytical-process paintings. By disturbing the traditional narrative of the gallery space viewers are forced to contemplate the gallery’s role in contemporary art practice.     

2008 February 29 - April 4 Adrift

Farheen HaQ & Linh Gia Ly

The Forest City Gallery is pleased to present Adrift featuring the work of artists Farheen HaQ and Linh Gia Ly. Borrowed from the title of HaQ’s pinnacle video, the term adrift conjures contradictory visions of helplessness and freedom. Both artists strive to define the socio-political displacement present in contemporary society, built upon multi-culturalism, gender equality, and nationalism. As artists’ producing in this environment, HaQ and Ly generate fictional narratives as reflections of contemporary existence. Photographed while meditating at various secular locations, HaQ challenges the physical and political restraints of her environment. In a similar manner, Ly uses snapshots taken during her trip to China to examine North America’s fixation with foreign countries in her video China. Ly and HaQ’s photographs of foreign environments and public spaces interpret the displacement that occurs between their experience, the camera’s lens, and the gaze of the viewer..

2008 January 11 - February 16 Jolly Rogers

Les Newman, Mark Laliberte, Beth McEachen, Chantal Rousseau and Stephanie Davidson

The Forest City Gallery is pleased to present Jolly Rogers, an exhibition featuring artists Les Newman, Mark Laliberte, Beth McEachen, Chantal Rousseau and Stephanie Davidson. The title Jolly Rogers infers a dialogue with the renowned pirates of the 16th century. Pirates terrorized the Atlantic Ocean forcefully taking cargo, ships, and crew as their reward. In modern society the term ‘pirating’ conjures a much different picture. The Internet has fostered an environment dependant on an open exchange of information. These techno environments have created a generation of ‘users’ who see the exchange of material forms not as copyright infringement, rather as a dialogue of growth and adaptation. DJ’s and artists re-mix past forms to create new ‘beats’ and visual forms. In Jolly Rogers artists exchange images, varying from Stephen King novel covers to CSI Vegas murder scenes, as forms of visual communication mirroring the exchange common in the landscape of the Internet. The web-browser – us – downloads and re-assembles music, videos, biographies, porn, accounts, and conversations through the act of pirating. The aggressive ‘thievery’ once associated with the pirate is now a common activity amongst today’s generation – a part of our visual language. The exhibition Jolly Rogers presents artists who embrace contemporary ‘piracy’ as an important form of cultural exchange.

2007 November 23 - December 21 corners/dust

Risa Horowitz and Clint Wilson

In our daily routines we progress through environments constructed on systems, pattern and repetition. The byproducts of these confrontations, such as garbage, urban architecture, media and our personal relationships become the traces of modern existence. In the practices of Horowitz and Wilson architectural spaces are cataloged and de-fragmented to create visual ‘maps’ of architectural environments. In the series corners, Horowitz photographed the corners of her Winnipeg apartment during her final winter there. In these photographs modernist and minimalist aesthetics are presented as failed and devoid forms. Architectural environments, as presented in corners, are simply byproducts of modern living. The collection and cataloging of environmental byproduct is the primary formal / conceptual locus in Wilson’s ongoing project particle theory. These photographs continue his systematic delineation of gallery spaces through the waste and dust collected in the space. For corners / dust Wilson will create particle ‘portraits’ of the Forest City Gallery’s discarded dust and debris

2007 October 19 - November 16 Habituation: recent paintings by Ehryn Torrell and Michael Lewis

The Forest City Gallery is pleased to present Habituation: recent paintings by Ehryn Torrell and Michael Lewis. The term ‘habituation’ suggests an environment informed through prolonged physical and social overexposure. The practice of both artists resides in the disturbed and disdained representation of lived environments infected by varying forms of social intervention.  In the works of Lewis we witness hypothesized ‘routines’ performed within simulated habitats. In the work of Torrell, detailed representations of deteriorating structures put in to question traditional characterizations commonly associated with urbanization. The environments of decay and disillusionment present in these works infer a dialogue with local habituation occurring in London’s urban communities. Torrell and Lewis use the medium of painting to expose our own community’s vulnerability to social and physical decay.

2007 september.......... Stranger Than Fiction:The Delicate Art of Faking History

.................Bo.................Davida Nemeroff, Cynthia Greig, Daniel Ehrenworth, Carl Zimmerman

Forest City Gallery presents Stranger than Fiction: The Delicate Art of Faking History curated by Heather Diack and Daniel Ehrenworth. This exhibition presents the work of four photo-based artists, Daniel Ehrenworth, Cynthia Greig, Davida Nemeroff, and Carl Zimmerman, who have decided to subvert the notion of the artist as a creator and present their work not as their own but as a discovery - a "found work".
If the viewer tends to approach a found work differently than a created work, how does the discourse change when an artist wants their audience to approach their work as a foundwork? Showcasing works entitled The Auditions Archive, My Father was a Pirate, The Bride Wore Trousers or New Eden: The Life and Work of Isabelle Raymond, and Lost Hamilton Landmarks, these artists investigate the space of the 'real' through their manipulation of autobiographical and cultural realities founded in the historicizing of myth and hoax. Furthering the gap between fiction and non-fiction, video monitors will show the cult classics The Blair Witch Project, Alien Autopsy, and the infamous World Trade Centre Tourist image alongside Ehrenworth's Greig's, Nemeroff's and Zimmerman's photographs. This serves as cultural reminders that this kind of discourse isn't limited to just the art world.

2007 june.................BoReconstructures

.................Bo.................Eryn Foster, Leah Garnett, Scott Rogers

2007 april.................BoBox Social: New London Art Round 2!!

................B..................GGreg Forrest, Chris Down, Grant Wilson, Blair Fornwald, Oh Billy Collective, Kevin Curtis-Norcross

2007 march...................Box Social: New London Art Round 1!

........................................Paula Jean Cowan, Farhang Jalali, Jason Hallows, Kodi Chrisjohn, David Poolman, Anna Wieselgren

2006 november............ Michael Waterman - RoboChorus

2006 november.............Michael Belmore

2006 october .................David Yonge - Performance Art Cannot Save The World

2006 september............Karen Tam - Old Silver Moon Restaurant

2005 july........................SWAMP: Collaborative works by Doug Easterly and Matt Kenyon

2005 june ......................Angela del Buono . Marie Legault . Duncan MacKenzie

2005 may ..................... Pamela Landry and Robert Hengeveld

2005 march ...................Chris Down - Experience, Mike Hansen - Itch

2004 july .......................Ted Hiebert - Chimera

2004 june ......................Sebastien Cliche - A Place Where You Feel Safe

2004 may...................... Brandon Vickerd

2004 april ......................Shawn Bailey & Jennifer Willlet - Bioteknica

2004 march ...................future_feed_forward - media and performance festival

2003 december ............Libby Hague and Carolyn Wren

2003 november............ Katherine Bourke, Kevin Curtis-Norcross, Simon Frank - Site Speific

2003 september............Marc Bell and Jason McLean - L.O. (We Grow 'Em Big Here)

2003 september............ Craig Leonard - MINT

2003 september............ Return to Sender