 |
|
William Kurelek |
 |
 |
|
David Milne |
 |
|
David Milne |
 |
|
David Milne |
 |
|
David Milne |
JOURNEYS
From The Odyssey to Canterbury Tales to On the Road, the open road has captivated our imaginations for thousands of years. While diaries, journals, and scrapbooks have helped human frame the long, transformative journey, the advent of amateur photography and filmmaking reinvigorated the subject, transforming it into one of the most visually prominent tropes in our culture.
Along side these technological developments came the creation of the modern highway, which has since become the most some stage of the road trip. As seen through the lens of film and video cameras, such journeys—taken by an extremely diverse group of individual—helped to shape our understand go the human experience during the 20th and 21st centuries.
OBJECTS
Mysterious and beautiful, the objects we collect and store reveal volumes about our personal psychology and the cultures we inhabit. Thinkers like Jean Baudrillard have argued that the act of collecting is a way to control our own sense of powerlessness and mortality. At the same time, the practice can provide us with a sense of joy and satisfaction.
In reality, a collection of objects can create tangible relationships where there was once only abstract thought and feeling. By bringing together these items, we are able to feel present in the world and present within our homes. While in some cases the accumulation of and affection of such objects may border on the obsessive, our feelings toward our collected ephemera help forge an experience that is both personal and universal.
FAMILIES
Families—whether we are born into them or choose them—are at the core of our social lives. Our tight-knit intimate circles help anchor us in the world, guiding us down paths through which we discover our identities. It is no surprise, then, that family has been a recurring subject for artists, writers, and filmmakers across all cultures, communities and eras.
Regardless of the forms they take, these visual documents reveal a vast array of complex relationships: some of which are defined by power, others by love. Families are much more than genealogical bonds. The strength of a family comes not from wealth or power, but from profound complicated, and shifting ties between individuals. Family life can be chaotic and volatile, but it can also lesson the strain of adversity.
 |
|
William Kurelek |
 |
HOME
Homes can be real, concrete places, but they can also me symbolic vessels that evoke childhood memories, fantasies, relationships and rituals. They can elicit a strange mixture of feelings, comfort, happiness, guilt, and fear. For some, home is not a house. Many individuals live within the confines of a prison, hospital or care facility.
From paintings of dwellings to videos of our domestic activities, the concept of home has been a subject of our representations for centuries. The home movies and artwork work together to highlight this tension and represent the complex emotional we relationships develop with the places in which we live.
Portraits of Resilience
2021
We are surrounded by stories of resilience—examples of people grappling with challenges who, in their day-to-day lives, manage to persist, survive, and even thrive. In 2021, the Portraits of Resilience project invited participants of all ages and skill levels to help us pictue the recent past and move forward together.
Participants were asked to create something that represented “resilience,” and then upload a digital version of their work to the AGO’s online community gallery. Over siz motnh, more than 3000 incredibly moving and creative composition were submitted: images of people, experiences, objects, landscapes, and moods.
The project was designed to showcase images, and words from and for the community, and to share how we’ve been resilient together throughout the pandemic. During a time of so much social and political upheaval and economic uncertainly, the dazzling expressions of creativity here illustrate the various forms that resilience can take and the way that it can be a catalyst for wonder and innovation. https://ago.ca/portraits-resilience
 |
|
William Kurelek |
 |
|
David Milne |
 |
|
David Milne |
No comments:
Post a Comment