Whether it’s shaking up the brain between exams or seeking depths of inspiration as the winter solstice approaches, the Dalhousie Art Gallery’s latest show has you covered. The 69th student, staff, faculty and alumni exhibition showcases the breadth of artistic talent within the Dal and the University of King’s College communities. The show, which opened Nov 29 and runs until Dec 22, features 57 participating artists and 100 artworks, including painting, photography, sculpture, video installations, textiles and more.
This show has been an annual tradition since 1955. Pamela Edmonds is the director and curator of the DAG. Edmonds says there are 10 students, 13 staff, 12 faculty and 22 alumni in the show from all over campus, including the faculties of art and social sciences, architecture, engineering, health and medicine, as well as facilities and library staff. “It’s a real range of folks,” says Edmonds.
This year, the show fills the entire gallery and is grouped around themes, colour relationships and artist abstracts. “It really does fill the entire gallery space,” says Edmonds. “100 works is a lot to see, and it’s nice to be able to give all artists in the show enough room to shine.”
Edmonds says it was nice to receive more sculptural work for this exhibition, like the work “The Two Foxes Within” by Dal faculty member Melanie Zurba, an associate professor in the School for Resource and Environmental Studies and the College of Sustainability. Zurba also contributed her writing to DAG’s catalogue of its previous show, Graeme Patterson’s Strange Birds.
Zurba’s piece in the current show “relates closely to her research,” says Edmonds. “She’s somebody who’s interested in curatorial practice and how art and science come together. These two foxes are made out of foraged clay, so she’s using materials from the landscape, and one fox is pulling a fishing net that she found at Peggys Cove. It’s an interesting work, I think that speaks about the environment and nature in a whimsical way.”
Another artist in the show is DAG’s new curatorial intern, Geoffrey Webster, who is in the last year of his BFA in Expanded Media at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. His piece is called “Buyer’s Remorse on Valencia Street.” It’s a poetic piece, says Edmonds, “that speaks about the politics of Black revolution and has a video of Amiri Baraka talking about deep thinkers.”
His work is in the DAG’s media gallery, where his free-form poem is written on the gallery wall beside his video installation. “It’s this nice intergenerational conversation between him as an artist and this early civil rights poet, you know, who was writing about their work back in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s,” says Edmonds. “So, it’s a really interesting conversation.”
People have been showing interest in the show, says Edmonds. “It’s nice to know that people are paying attention to local creativity,” she says. “It’s interesting to see folks who you might not even imagine making things, and they’re making amazing quote works, or other works, and are able to balance having studied lives in architecture, lab work, etc.—but they still find time to paint and do all kinds of other things.”
For show hours, the DAG is open Wednesdays and Fridays 11am-5pm; Thursdays 11am-8pm; Saturdays and Sundays 12-5pm. The DAG is an accessible space and is always free to attend. Previous shows at the DAG, including Graeme Patterson’s Strange Birds are viewable for those who missed them or want a revisit in the form of virtual tours at the DAG website here.
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This article appears in Dec 1-18, 2024.