Please join us for an online panel discussion with the artists in Surface, Sample, Site, a group exhibition exploring photography’s material relationships with plants, microbes and the earth. While the artists in this exhibition are all based in British Columbia, their works address a range of locations, from coastal forests and urban gardens to the Siberian tundra and digital space. Moderated by the exhibition curator, Laurie White, the panel will discuss the works in the exhibition as well as their place within the artists’ larger practices. The discussion will be followed by an audience Q & A.
To RSVP and receive the panel's Zoom link please email Exhibitions and Publications Coordinator, Caeden Wigston at caeden@gallery44.org
Víctor Ballesteros is an artist and filmmaker based inVancouver. Through ultra-high-definition video, photographyand writing, his current work explores materials used in thearchitecture of museums and galleries—such as plywood anddrywall—and their relation to art display, colonial history,geopolitical competition and financial investment in North andSouth America. Ballesteros studied art and art history at EmilyCarr University of Art + Design and the University of BritishColumbia and has received support from the BC Arts Counciland the Canada Council for the Arts.
Ramey Newell is a filmmaker, photographer and artist based in British Columbia and Oregon. Newell holds a BFA inPhotography from New Mexico State University and an MFA in Visual Art from the University of British Columbia and hasshown work in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom,Europe and Australia. Newell was awarded the Stellar Award at Black Maria Film Festival in 2018 and won the Symbiosiscompetition at Imagine Science Film Festival in 2022. Sheteaches film studies, video production and documentary film atthe UBC Okanagan.
Tara Nicholson is a photo-based artist whose practice exploresecological activism through a more-than-human lens. She hasexhibited across Canada and internationally, with projectsfunded by the BC Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.Nicholson attended an eco-art residency at the Banff Centre in 2019 and was awarded the Künstlerhaus Dortmund Artist-in-Residence Award in 2017. She teaches at the University ofVictoria and holds degrees from Toronto Metropolitan Universityand Concordia University. Nicholson is completing a PhD at the UBC Okanagan, which documents Arctic extinction andpermafrost research—considering the role of storytelling inenacting change.
Deb Silver is a multimedia artist living and working on S’ólhTéméxw. Silver holds an MFA from Emily Carr University of Art+ Design and a BFA from the University of the Fraser Valley.Silver’s art practice draws attention to the interconnectionbetween Coast Salish Cultural Knowledge and Western scienceresearch. Silver has exhibited at The Reach Gallery Museum inAbbotsford, The Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver and was afinalist for the 2021 Philip B. Lind Emerging Artist Prize.
Laurie White (she/her) is a curator and writer based inVancouver, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamishand Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Her research exploresecological methodologies in art and theory—curatingexhibitions and programs at Or Gallery, grunt gallery, Griffin ArtProjects, the fifty fifty arts collective and Documenta 14. Recentpublications include “Every Being is a Score for Another” inWetland Project: Explorations in Sound, Ecology and Post-Geographical Art). She holds an MA in Critical and CuratorialStudies and is pursuing a PhD in Art History from the Universityof British Columbia.
