BOOM! Exhibition & Forum at Oxygen Centre in BC

Multidisciplinary Multimedia & Mixed Media Show About Urban Growth

Jan 12, 2009

Anita Levesque, Spaces in Lack Installation, Artist: Anita Levesque, Photo: Simone Keiran

When Nicola Harwood, Oxygen Art Centre's artist-in-residence, found that rapid urban expansion divided the community of Nelson, BC, she put together a special exhibition.

BOOM! Exhibition, the brainchild of Nicola Harwood, was conceived as a multidisciplinary multimedia and mixed media group response to unprecedented urban growth. Oxygen Art Centre, the artist-run facility established in 2002, in Nelson, BC, Canada, was the focalized center of Harwood's exhibition, but the show extended past gallery's walls with site-specific installations throughout the city. It drew upon filmmakers and photographers from other cities, and architectural students from the University of British Columbia's School of Architectural Design and Landscape Architecture, and expanded to include anyone who wanted to contribute to a dialogue about urban expansion.

"Waterfront development had become this huge politically divisive issue for Nelsonites," Harwood explained, " to the point where people weren't listening to each other anymore.

"This show was in response to to this conflict, but it expanded beyond the original parameters. I wanted to host an exhibition, but it grew to outside venues and different approaches. I also wanted to gather people together who were keen to discuss growth in Nelson, everyone from community activists, to urban planners, to the tourism industry. This resulted in the BOOM! Forum, which involved presentations and panel discussions."

Site-specific Mixed-media Installations Throughout Nelson

Thomas Loh’s aesthetic transparencies stood across from each other within striated wooden frames, which ran horizontally in the Kootenay Baker window, and vertically in the Craft Connection window. They presented opposing polarities or longitudinal-latitudinal viewpoints, unlikely ever to meet.

Brent Bukowski’s metal sculpture, sheltered under a stand of cedars on the city hall plaza, played on the graph paper and stat charts of urban planners, including crumpled and discarded studies.

Anita Levesque, a newcomer to Nelson's art scene, life-sized photographic cut-outs in the Nelson Trading Co. storefront evoked crowding and the need for cooperation and synchronization to work within limited spaces.

Leah Mayoh's stencilled window sayings referred to the connection between evolution and change.

These were interconnected with an iPod Audio Walking Tour, recorded by Terry Brennan, a producer for Kootenay Coop Radio. The piece included a history of Nelson, from mining community to its present challenges.

Gallery Installations

Patrick Thompson's Ashes to Ashes mural and installation covered an entire corner of Oxygen gallery from floor to ceiling. It placed a formal abstract canvas against an effusive and colourful backdrop which evoked graffiti, playfully hinting at the relationship between Nelson's formal cultural heritage and its strong counter-cultural elements.

A bank of five TV sets played a series of interviews by Amy Bohigian of residents ranging from old miners to mothers, pot activists to young teenagers. Each described their personal vision for Nelson. This included a segment led by the Thomas Loh, architect, modern dancer and artist who described his upbringing in Eastern Canada, where historical architecture predates British Columbia's 150-year history as a province. Nelson's city planners had imposed a consistent arts-&-crafts period of civic architecture which resulted in a pastiche of faux-heritage frontage, as opposed to buildings which evolved with the times and technology.

David Guenther and Heather Maxwell presented the ideas, architectural models and schema designed by architecture students at UBC for attractive, environmentally sound, high-density housing.

Forum Presentations

Filmmakers, Florence Debeugny and Lynsey Hamilton of Vancouver screened their film "Giants Leap / Á pas de géants" about condo developments and conformity.

Musician and Kicking Horse Culture Rep, Bill Usher led a panel discussion on the creative aspects of cultural planning and infrastructure.

Urban developers and Community Activists discussed sustainable, affordable and liveable communities.

BOOM! was an unusual exhibition comprising many different elements all of which came together, along with the community of Nelson, BC, to recognize the strength and power of diversity. In this manner, art again was an instrumental tool in the transformation of culture.

The copyright of the article BOOM! Exhibition & Forum at Oxygen Centre in BC in Multimedia Arts is owned by Simone Keiran. Permission to republish BOOM! Exhibition & Forum at Oxygen Centre in BC in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.