Clive Holden | utopia suite disco
EXHIBITION
RECEPTION + DISCO PARTY
ARTIST LECTURE + UTOPIAN CONVERSATION
What Would Manitoba Look Like Today if Louis Riel Had Succeeded?
What if many Canadians’ favorite political hero/folk hero had joined forces with Sitting Bull? Would the country still stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific? Was the Métis leader’s vision of a homeland across Western Canada a utopian dream, in other words something highly desirable and also impossible? Would we have a different system of government today? Whose head would be on our money, and whose God in our constitution? The “Father of Manitoba” did speak of his divine direction that he was chosen as a prophet for his people. How many of our best leaders have this belief? Does it matter if they lead us well? Louis Riel was executed for high treason. How many of our most visionary utopians have we lost in this way throughout history?
In the Manitoba version of the Y.O.U. (Your Own Utopia) on-line questionnaire we’ve added some of these questions. We want to know what you think: you.utopiasuite.com.
We also want to know who you’d include in YOUR Utopia Hall of Fame, and we want you to remember your own lost utopian dreams, hope-reviving epiphanies, shelved epic-heroic novel manuscripts, or dusty drawer brilliant blueprints.Y.O.U. (Your Own Utopia) is part of Clive Holden’s on-going, multi-year Utopia Suite project. We’re collecting questionnaire results from the web + currently at Winnipeg regional libraries. Clive Holden will read and organize them, and respond by merging them with a variety of moving image media, to be presented throughout the Utopia Suite project. This will include a Manitoba segment in Clive’s new Leader Series.
U are so dynamic.Utopia Suite’s core conceit is that movement (cinema) begets hope (utopianism) which begets more movement, creating positive cycles, and maybe a way forward for all of us. And a part of this movement is interactive communication, in other words you’re invited to participate. We want to know YOUR feelings about utopia: does the word make you think of bookish, monolithic yet timeless civic planning tomes, feverishly detailed blueprints for idyllic imaginary islands, elegantly described visionary futures that make you want to swoon… or Barack Obama?!
For more information, please contact the Centre directly: PLATFORM | 121-100 Arthur Street | Winnipeg, Manitoba | R3B 1H3 | 204.942.8183 | www.platformgallery.org
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Clive Holden has exhibited his film and video works both nationally and internationally at venues including the Anthology Film Archives, New York; the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria; the International Festival of Films on Art, Montreal; Kosmopolis Festa Internacional de la Literatura, Barcelona; and the Festival di Palazzo Venezia, Rome. He has lectured and given talks for Kino Arsenal, Berlin; Holland Festival, Amsterdam; the Images Festival, Toronto; the Danish Film Institute, Copenhagen; aceartinc., Winnipeg; the Deutsch-Amerikanische Institut, Heidelberg; the Royal Danish Academy of Art, Copenhagen; and the University of Manitoba School of Architecture, Winnipeg. In 2003, his book accompanying the film project Trains of Winnipeg was short-listed for the Manitoba Book of the Year Award and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award.
Vicky Chainey Gagnon holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in film studies and art history (Concordia University, 1999), as well as a Master of Arts degree in interdisciplinary studies with a specialization in the history and practice of avant-garde filmmaking practices (York University, 2005). She is presently working towards a Ph.D in Muséologie, patrimoine et médiation at UQAM while also working at the Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop’s University, where she has been Curator since 2005. Her current research concerns emerging institutional curatorial practices in Canada. She is the author of several essays on visual and media artists such as Nelson Henricks, Denyse Thomasos, Lucie Chan, and Carla Zaccagnini, and has also been the organizer and curator of numerous exhibitions of Canadian and international art in Toronto, Winnipeg, Montréal and Sherbrooke.
This exhibition at PLATFORM Centre for Photographic + Digital Arts, presented by the WNDX Festival of Film & Video Art and circulated by the Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop’s University, will include the following Utopia Suite segments: Utopia Suite Disco and Ken Dryden, as well as the on-line, on-going community outreach and conversation:Y.O.U. (Your Own Utopia).
Circulated by:
Foreman Art Gallery of Bishop’s University
2600 College St.
Sherbrooke, Quebec
Canada, J1M 1Z7
+1 819-822-9600, ext. 2260
Curator: Vicky Chainey Gagnon
www.ubishops.ca/foreman/index.html