What’s happening?
The City of New Westminster is having an unveiling and curator talk related to its latest project with the Capture Photography Festival. An unveiling of the new public art installation is on Saturday, April 21 at noon at Sapperton Park, 351 East Columbia St.
Tell me about the installation:
The Play, by Ruth van Beek, is a large-scale installation that will be located on the Sapperton Park fence.
Van Beek is a Dutch artist and bookmaker whose work draws from her ever-growing archive of found source material taken from vintage books and magazines.
“For her installation at Sapperton Park in New Westminster, van Beek pulls from photographs found in instructional manuals for children’s toys,” said a press release from the city. “Here, a set of child’s hands are a surrogate for the artist’s own hands, shown animating a collection of abstract painted shapes. The Play is curated by Jeff Khonsary for New Documents.”
Who is involved in The Play?
Van Beek’s work has been presented in several solo and group exhibitions in Amsterdam, Berlin, New York and San Francisco, and published online and in print in Capricious, Foam Magazine, Vanity Fair, Rodeo, It’s Nice That and the British Journal of Photography. She recently completed a collaboration with the Italian fashion label Marni.
Khonsary, a Los Angeles–based editor, curator and designer, is director and founder of New Documents, a book imprint focusing on books by artists. New Documents published van Beek’s book The Cast in 2017.
What is the Capture Photography Festival?
Capture Photography Festival, a not-for-profit festival that began in 2013, strives to nurture emerging talent, engage community, and spark public dialogue about photography as an art form and a vessel for communication. This year’s festival will present photographs at more than 75 galleries in Metro Vancouver and feature public art installations, tours, films, artist talks and panel discussions.
Are there any other local components to the festival?
* Chilcotin Rodeo features a collection of photographs that New West-based photographer Gabor Gasztonyi has taken of smaller rodeos in B.C., including First Nations rodeos in the Chilcotin region. An opening reception takes place tonight (April 12) from 6 to 10 p.m. at Gabor Gasztonyi Studio and Gallery, 730 12th St. “This collection of photographs seeks to portray the emotional relationship one finds in rodeo rather than the act of riding a bucking horse or a bull,” said a synopsis of the exhibition, which runs until May 12.
* X2 by artists Rodrigo Sarrat-Cave and Gregory Geipel examines issues of urbanism, development, gentrification, decay, reconfiguration and adaptation of urban spaces. It’s running until April 28 at the Van Dop Gallery, 421 Richmond St.
Details, please.
For details about these and other components of the Capture Photography Festival go to www.capturephotofest.com
