studio béluga

current:

surface tension press release; exhibit nov. 21-28 2009

For Immediate Release: November 12th 2009
Contact:     Alina Maizel, Surface Tension Exhibition Co-ordinator, studio béluga.
studiobelugacontact@gmail.com, (514)661-6821

Anti ‘development porn’ photo exhibit commemorates 25th anniversary of
Bhopal chemical disaster, Palestinian refugees’ everyday realities of creative resistance, survival.

Photographs often portray oppressed people as weak, vulnerable and helpless –- a depiction that parallels imperial ideas of might and right. Surface Tension: Living a Daily Reality of Injustice instead exposes the unique and vibrant cultures that spring up in spite of – and sometimes because of – resistance to injustice. Work by Montréal-based photographers Melanie Hadida and Justin Shoub is presented by alternative exhibition space studio béluga (www.studiobeluga.wordpress.com) in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Union Carbide chemical disaster in Bhopal, India. Surface Tension opens 19:00h November 21st 2009 with viewings by appointment until November 28th.
Both Hadida, who interned in a Bhopali health clinic, and Shoub, who was granted unofficial access to three Palestinian refugee camps, celebrate the warmth and humanity of people who are suffering and surviving. Their photographs – of children playing without toys in front of ‘the wall’, of doctors joking with their patients, of disabled women and children carrying placards and enduring hunger strikes – aim to invoke feelings of admiration, not pity.
Hadida’s photographs are thematically subtle and visually complex. They portray the daily lives of affected Bhopali activists and citizens, people who do not fit into stereotypical images of either helpless victimhood nor privileged activism. Many are women suffering from ‘invisible’ health problems, such as dangerous levels of mercury and lead in their breast-milk. They are strong, united and determined. Their concerted efforts successfully forced the Indian government to demand the extradition of former Union Carbide CEO and 25-year fugitive, Warren Anderson, from the USA this July. Some of these citizens (including a three-year-old child) were arrested and beaten this September when they burned an effigy of the Indian Minister of the Environment. As Robert Del Tredici, Concordia University professor of photography and author of the award-winning At Work in the Fields of the Bomb, states, Hadida’s photographs “…provide us with a sobering reminder of the tragedy that impacted so many there – and a celebration of the human spirit as it suffers to transform what happened.”
Shoub’s photographs focus less on the struggle to transform hardship as they do on the struggle to survive it. While his previous work in the NGO community was more overtly political, Shoub now seeks to present only “…a visual narrative that helps the viewer to emotionally identify with the subject.” While travelling through the region, Shoub visited much of the West Bank, including the Aida, Dhesisheh, and Balata refugee camps. His photographs of militarized Mosque entrance checkpoints, and of water tanks rendered useless by bullet holes, document ugly elements of the conflict and occupation. However, his photographs of graffiti on ‘the wall’, and store-keepers who refuse to close shop in a deserted marketplace, showcase the people’s tenacity and the many ways they engage in peaceful resistance.
‘The wall’ figures strongly in Shoub’s photographs, most often as a backdrop to scenes that portray the realities of everyday life in the Palestinian territories. While we remember the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall, Shoub directs our attention to the events happening behind, on and around the walls in our world today.

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Fact Sheet

Contact Information:

Alina Maizel, Surface Tension Exhibition Co-ordinator:
studiobelugacontact@gmail.com,
(514) 661-6821

studio béluga, Exhibition Venue: www.studiobeluga.wordpress.com
#32A, 999 Rue du Collège,
Montréal, Québec
H4C 2S3

Metro Station: Place-St.-Henri
Google Map to studio béluga: http://studiobeluga.wordpress.com/contact/

Background on Bhopal:
Fundraising Merchandise and Website Coverage of Surface Tension Provided by: Students for Bhopal
http://studentsforbhopal.org/

Greenpeace – Bhopal Chemical Disaster Timeline http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/toxic-hotspots/bhopal-timeline

CBC Story – India wants arrest of American in Bhopal disaster (August 1, 2009)
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/07/31/bhopal-disaster-arrest-carbide.html

Bhopali Local Activist Website – Bhopalis, Including Children, Arrested, Beaten Up, After Burning Effigy Of Minister Who Mocked Survivors.
http://www.bhopal.net/

Background on West Bank:
Amnesty International Report – Challenging Repression: Human Rights Defenders in the Middle East and North Africa http://www.amnesty.ca/resource_centre/reports/view.php?load=arcview&article=4645&c=Resource+Centre+Reports

UN Relief and Works Agency: Who is a Palestinian Refugee?
http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/whois.html

UN Relief and Works Agency: Aida Camp
http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/westbank/aida.html

UN Relief and Works Agency: Balata Camp
http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/westbank/balata.html

UN Relief and Works Agency: Dheisheh Camp
http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/westbank/dheisheh.html

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archive:

studio béluga profiled by jasia stuart on midnight poutine:

“It’s hard to talk about all the divergent emerging artists’ practices that are encompassed and tied up in this notion of nest-making, but I feel that they all feed back into the idea of community. It’s a space where things can happen and artists come together to compare and connect ideas. It remains to be seen if this nest is a temporary one, but I think the project representations a community willingness to work together to achieve common goals, and I expect the community at large to produce an ever increasing quantity of art-nests.”

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nestling press release, august 27th 2009

nestling: a series of events about nests and home.

Montréal, Canada –

studio béluga announces nestling, a series of exhibitions and workshops exploring themes of nesting, home, and family. Running from Aug. 27th to Sep. 4th, nestling features the work of eight emerging Canadian artists. to be located in a sheltered spot (Aug 27, 6-10pm), shows works by Celine Gorham, Maziar Javidiani, Rebecca St. John, Duy Khu’o’ng Pham and Elise Pineda. Using materials as diverse as ceramic, chalk pastel, painting and tropical reed, these artists explore the making of homes, both concrete and ethereal. The artists will engage in a round-table discussion the following day, Friday, August 28th, from 5 – 6pm. This discussion will be moderated by exhibition curators Natalia Lebedinskaia and Anastasia Hare; it will be followed by a circular structure of twigs (Aug 28, 7 – 8:30pm), a reed-weaving workshop in which Fredericton-based artist Celine Gorham instructs us in the art of hands-on nest-creation. as in a hollow tree (Sep 3, 6-10pm) showcases the work of Jennifer Goddard, Natalia Lebedinskaia and Svea Vikander, whose work with family photographs and narrative challenge the linearity of family history and structures. The following day, Svea Vikander conducts the second workshop, in which to lay and incubate (sep 4, 7 – 8:30pm). Through the visual exposition of family psychological heritage (the genogram), we will re-examine the idea of the ‘family tree.’ Admission is free to both exhibitions and the panel discussion; admission to the workshops is by donation.

Terminology:

nestling:
A nestling is a young bird that has not yet developed its flight feathers and so cannot leave the nest. The act of nestling is the process of settling into a position that feels comfortable, warm, and safe, or laying a part of the body in such a position. In creating events from the dictionary definitions of nest and nestling (to be located in a sheltered spot, a circular structure of twigs, as in a hollow tree, and in which to lay and incubate), the curators hope to create a visual vocabulary of the often underxamined or unconscious aspects of home, safety, and kinship.

Nests provide shelter. Their qualities are determined by the needs of their occupants: habitat, environment, history, wants, imagination. Animal nests are often constructed of found organic materials such as twigs, grass, and leaves; they also incorporate human-made findings: string, plastic, cloth, hair or paper. They transform indentations in the ground, gaps between tree branches, cracks in rocks and windowsills of buildings; they give life to otherwise uninhabited spaces. Events in the nestling series will explore the desire to create and occupy enclosure, to weave nests out of memory, chalk, clay; to build safety from yarn, words and twig.

to be located in a sheltered spot and a circular structure of twigs:

Celine Gorham’s practice as a textile and mixed-media artist centres on the theme of fertility symbolism. Her images and ideas are not only of producing offspring, but also of caring for them, of the necessary strength and devotion that a nestling requires. For to be located in a sheltered spot she has constructed delicate nest-like sculptures out of tropical rattan and waxed linen; these she fills with objects such as avocado seeds and feathers. She will demonstrate this process in a circular structure of twigs, where she gives a hands-on demonstration of reed-weaving. Duy Khu’o’ng Pham’s drawings are a document of his quest to create a perfect calligraphic circle. Each stroke, like a thread or a twig, is a token of migration, material transported from elsewhere to create a home. Maziar Javidiani’s chalk carpets are drawn directly on the gallery floor, where he takes up the aesthetic and ideology of Gabbeh (Iranian nomadic) carpet weaving. The Gabbeh weave their life stories from materials naturally coloured and dyed from the seasons and landscapes encountered through their migration. Javidiani’s chalk drawings are similarly itinerant, as with each visitor’s footprint they are smudged into the floor. This temporality, a carpet of inconstant shape and colour, mirrors the process of memory and its haphazard construction of places like country and home. Rebecca St. John’s paintings continue the notion of recollection as a woven, creative process. She works from childhood photographs of herself and her sister swimming in a lake, playing a game of make-believe: in their world they are mistresses of their own islands. She has materialized these islands on large canvases, paintings that transform the gallery into a space of simultaneous joy and nostalgia. Elise Pineda’s ceramic cups draw from aesthetics of domesticity and kitsch; they create small worlds unto themselves and nestle in our hands as we encounter the exhibition. Unlike disposable wine glasses or plastic cups, Pineda’s mugs’ explicit materiality allows the exhibition to simulate a feeling of home.

as in a hollow tree and in which to lay and incubate:

Expanding upon the idea of the ‘nest’ as a place of home and family, Jennifer Goddard, Natalia Lebedinskai and Svea Vikander examine the family constellation – its structure, inaccuracies, polyvalence, non-linearity and dispersion. In as in a hollow tree the branches do not always grow straight; sometimes they curve, wither, or fold back upon themselves.

Jennifer Goddard is newly returned to painting, having spent the last twenty years raising her daughter. Now that she is an ‘empty nester,’ Goddard has both more and less: more space for her artistic practice but less constant family contact. In addressing these issues, Goddard has begun to replicate and elaborate upon the colourful, unencumbered abstract paintings her daughter created as a child. Goddard’s paintings question the traditional belief that knowledge transfers from adult to child, parent to offspring; in her work we can see the circularity of familial structures, the endless inter-communication of kith and kin.

Natalia Lebedinskaia also works with images from the past. After almost ten years in Canada, she received a box of black and white childhood photographs from the former Soviet Union. Taken by her grandmother during a time Lebedinskaia does not remember, in an idyllic rural area she feels no connection to, and in a nation that no longer exists, these photographs are both hollow and over-full of meaning. As she re-paints the evidence of family ties and structures hidden from her view during years of immigration and cultural adjustment, Lebedinskaia is incorporating them into her vision of herself and her family.

Svea Vikander first read Alcestis’ Shrine when she was visiting her grandparents. Ten years old and curious, she found it in a book while snooping through their storage space. She was immediately taken by the poem – a telling of the ancient Greek tragedy, an ode to a sacrificed woman – she copied it into her diary and promptly forgot about it. Newly recaptivated by it, she has produced an installation in an abandoned factory (photographs of which will be on display at the exhibition) which is composed of her contemporary re-telling of this tragedy. The story is told through the eyes of her daughter, who has memorialized her mother by writing her narrative on the walls of this inaccessible space.

in which to lay and incubate is the last event of this series; in this workshop, intern psychotherapist Svea Vikander instructs us in the creation of family genograms. Drawing on genealogical traditions, the genogram is a visual representation of the psychological characteristics and dynamics that interlace the typical family tree. Gaining insight into the family’s history and processes helps us to nest more securely within it.

studio béluga:

Nestled in an old warehouse in the Saint-Henri neighbourhood, just a few blocks from the Place Saint-Henri Metro station, studio béluga (at 999 rue du College, suite 32A) is a studio and exhibition venue that provides its large, sunlit space for creative thinkers. Attracting musicians, painters, writers, curators, poets, photographers and performance artists, it fosters a sense of artistic community inclusive of all ages, backgrounds, and disciplines. The studio is run by a team of dedicated volunteers, and co-ordinated by Montréal-based curators Svea Vikander and Natalia Lebedinskaia; they can be reached at studiobelugacontact@gmail.com, 514.754.7832, or by through their website www.studiobeluga.wordpress.com. New members, friends, foes and proposals are always welcome.

press contact:
studiobelugacontact@gmail.com
Svea Vikander: 514.754.7832
Natalia Lebedinskaia: 514.244.2789

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ESTUARY press release, July 1st 2009

ESTUARY: From the Land by Rivers, From the Ocean by Tides
Work by Patricia Parsons, Kristal Kordich-Crandall, and Matt James.
Coordinated and Curated by Svea Vikander, Natalia Lebedenskaia and Alina Maizel at studio béluga, St. Henri, Montréal.
Vernissage July 2nd 6-10pm, viewings July 2nd-4th by appointment.

ESTUARY is an exploration of the joys, beauties and pitfalls of rampant, capitalist consumerism. Matt James defaces a well-known impressionist print; Patricia Parsons frames a turquoise manhole cover; Kristal Kordich-Crandall’s heroine turns metal into wood. These works question assumptions about the value of useless objects, the role of the artist in society, and the inescapability of consumption. Just as belugas congregate to devour fish in estuaries of their choosing, on July 2nd studio béluga invites you to come and consume all the best things the tide brought in.

studio béluga (www.studiobeluga.wordpress.com) is a free-form collective formed with the aim of fostering creativity in everyday life, interdisciplinary crossover in specialized disciplines, and community pride through studio time, workshops, lectures, exhibitions and online programming. Since mid-May 2009, three artists ranging in age from 19 to 63, working in media as diverse as sculpture, painting, installation and textiles, have been working full-time in our 1,000 square-foot warehouse space. Thursday marks our inaugural exhibition of compelling work by interesting local artists.

Like a crow will just as soon steal a shiny candy wrapper as a solid gold ring, Patricia Parsons, a former medical illustrator, takes useless found objects and re-values them. While we usually get rid of an object once its use has been fulfilled –- the candy has been eaten, the divorce has been finalized –- Parsons’ mixed-media found-object ensembles encourage us to discard our ideas of the object’s worthlessness and re-experience it as an art piece itself.

Commenting on modes of artistic production, emerging artist Matt James has imposed his own drawings on familiar impressionist prints. Through the availability of print and digital reproduction, artistic works have become public domain, easily available and therefore disposable: Monet prints fill the garbage bins of college dorms each spring. James, however, makes productive use of reproduction, selling photocopies of his work for just three dollars apiece. He questions just how dismal disposability really is.

Kristal Kordich-Crandall’s paintings for this exhibit have already been sold. This is due partially to her reputation as an artist, but mostly to the way her paintings, inspired by her own dark dreamscapes, elicit the onlooker’s deepest cravings. Kordich-Crandall dreams of machinery and humanity, a hybrid imbued with melancholic loneliness. In this cold, pre-packaged world, emotion is currency to be saved and spent in the quest to return to a more ‘authentic,’ unmediated form of being.

Address: studio béluga, #32A, 999 Rue Du Collège, Montréal, Québec.
Map: http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=999+Du+College+Montreal&sll=45.521503,-73.615952&sspn=0.122919,0.255775&dirflg=r&date=09%2F03%2F24&time=14:45&ttype=dep&noexp=0&noal=0&sort=&tline=&ie=UTF8&ll=45.480039,-73.590181&spn=0.007688,0.015986&z=16&iwloc=addr
Contact: Svea Vikander, co-ordinator: (514) 754-7832. svea.vikander@gmail.com, studiobelugacontact@gmail.com
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