Gallery 44 Centre for Contemporary Photography is pleased to present, thinking alongside itself, a collection of essays by 2023-2024 Writer-in-Residence, Weiyi Chang, published on the occasion of Cold Data, an exhibition by 2023-2024 Artists-in-Residence, Soft Turns.
Over two years, Chang and Soft Turns’ residencies were paired to encourage durational research and close study between them. Together, they engaged in a practice of thinking-in-parallel, resulting in essays by Chang that constellate Soft Turns’ practice and artworks within their common fields of interest: ecology, contemporary environmental concerns, human/non-human ethics and their socioeconomic, political and cultural ramifications.
On October 30th we will launch Weiyi Chang's new publication and hear from Soft Turns as they speak on Cold Data, their exhibition currently inhabiting Gallery 44.
Weiyi Chang is an independent writer and curator whose research lies at the intersections of ecology, environmental ethics, climate change, politics, capitalism and time. Weiyi has curated exhibitions and programs in Canada, the United States, and Germany. Her art criticism and essays have been published in Canadian Art, C Magazine, and Luma Quarterly and she has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues published by the Whitney Museum of American Art, Documenta 14, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and more.
Weiyi was a 2019-20 Helena Rubinstein Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study Program. She holds a MA in Art History (Critical and Curatorial Studies) from the University of British Columbia and a BA (Honours) Major in Art History and Major in Philosophy from Western University.
Soft Turns is the collaborative effort of Wojciech Olejnik and Sarah Jane Gorlitz. Alongside simple mechanisms—pulleys, mirrors, paper, lenses—and crucially, their own bodies, they use stop-motion animation’s capacity to stretch and collapse time, to attempt to get as close as possible to the rhythms of their subjects. The results are slow-paced, immersive, intimate video-centred installations. Recent research interests include: controlled artificial environments such as greenhouses and data centres, plant-human interactions and the physics of information. Feature articles about their work have been published in Canadian Art and Esse. Their work has been exhibited across Canada and internationally, most recently at the Plumb (Toronto, 2021) 8eleven (Images Festival, 2018), and The Art Museum at the University of Toronto (2018). Together, they have been privileged to live and participate in several communities abroad and in Canada, including a pivotal three year residency at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph (2016-19).
