Honouring the Work of Hands

Opening Reception: Friday March 15, 6PM – 9PM
Exhibition run: March 15 – April 19, 2024
Gallery hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 12-5PM
Free, everyone welcome!

Honouring the Work of Hands features the work of Desanka Cazic-Kalem, Cato Cormier, Vi Houssin, Alana MacDougall, Shelley McCafferty, Mandy Malazdrewich and Emma K. Mayer. These artists were mentored by Barb Hunt, Jennine Krauchi, Kristin Nelson and Leesa Streifler in the 2022-23 Foundation Mentorship Program.

This eclectic exhibition offers variety—an opportunity to see what dialogues emerge when very different sensibilities share a space. Works in Honouring the Work of Hands pay respect to various histories of making, including those that colonialist, patriarchal and classist structural hierarchies have often relegated to realms outside fine art discourse, such as sewing, beadwork, hobby-crafts, ceramics, woodworking and construction, underground comics and zines, and drag, to name a few. They also explore the generative and creative potential of acts like gardening, parenting, body imaging, bodily imagining, performance and play.

Through their work, these artists explore the pain, joy and spectacular strangeness of having a body and being alive, of being wondrously imbued with the agency, desire and capacity to give their ideas and experiences shape and form through the work of their hands.