EVENT: Geometry of Knowing Part 3 With Carole Itter and Devon Knowles
may 13, 2015
On a sunny Saturday May 9 at SFU Gallery, the final event in our Geometry of Knowing series brought together two Vancouver based artists to discuss their projects in Part 3 of the exhibition. Both projects find unique spatial articulations in relationship to the local landscape, history and culture.
Carole Itter discussed her 1979 photographic series Euclid (from the slide series Euclid’s 13th Theorem, which was produced in collaboration with an Al Neil performance). The works bring together images of Neil drawing Euclidean geometry on the sand at Cate’s Park, which is almost directly across from Burnaby Mountain. As part of a consideration around shifting contexts, materials and forms, the exhibition also included Neil’s LP Boot and Fog, which uses one of Itter’s Euclidimages on the cover. Itter’s discussion was accompanied by a listening session of tracks from the LP.
Devon Knowles contextualized her new work, MPB Umwelt (2015), which focuses on how the environment (umwelt) has shifted through climate change and industrial production, specifically in terms of the negative effects of the mountain pine beetle (MPB). The work was created in response to Bridge Beardslee’s 1976 Energy Alignment Sculpture, Pyramid in the Golden Section, a sculpture in the SFU Art Collection that ascribes mystical dimensions to the landscape. Knowles’ consideration of this pyramid remaps a contemporary relationship to landscape, art history and material knowledge.
The event ended with a visit to Beardslee’s work and a walk to a northern view of the mountains.
For more information on Geometry of Knowing Part 3 click here.