Bernice Vincent receives flowers at her 1975 opening at the Forest City Gallery. From the Don Vincent Archive, McIntosh Gallery, Western University. Courtesy of Esther Vincent and McIntosh Gallery.
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We are pleased to report that our 50th Anniversary Members' Show & Sale Fundraiser, in partnership with the Embassy Cultural House, was a phenomenal success. In total, this initiative raised $12,388. From this, $3,587 returns to artists. $2,190 has been raised to support ECH programs. $6,611 has been raised to support FCG programs in 2024.This event would not have been a success without the support of our Membership, our local sponsors, and our community. This landmark Members' Show & Sale included more than 90 local and regional artists, and more than 140 works of art were on view. Our opening reception was one of our biggest in years! Our community has truly reinvigorated our organization with your enthusiasm, your words of encouragement, and by simply coming in the door or perusing our website over these last few weeks. We'd like to extend our thanks to local sponsors: thank you to Common Ground Farm and Gunn's Hill Artisan Cheese for donating incredible local treats for the reception, London Brewing Co-Op for providing local craft beers, Sobrii for their non-alcholic gin donation, and Collective Arts for their non-alcoholic Botany line beverages. Thank you to Art East Picture Framing for providing us with packing materials to safely package works following the exhibition. Of course, thank you to artists Ron Benner and Wyn Geleynse for installing the exhibition (and not minding too much when we had to temporarily take it down for a rock show). Thank you to Cory Downing and Romeo Beaulieu for documenting all of the exhibition works. We extend a special thank you to Esther Vincent for donating beautiful works by Bernice Vincent, and to Alyosha Ferris for donating a truly meaningful work by FCG founder kerry ferris. We are thrilled that these works, and so many others, have found new homes. We're headed on holiday for a couple of weeks, and we're excited to return on January 6th with an exhibition by Londoners Rima Sater and Laura Acosta! Read on for more information, and join us for their opening reception and creative writing workshop in early January.
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You Can’t Have Honey Without An Onion
Rima Sater and Laura Acosta
January 6 - February 17, 2024
Opening Reception January 6, 7-9PM
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FCG is delighted to announce it's first exhibition of 2024: You Can’t Have Honey Without An Onion is a film piece presented as an expanded cinema experience exploring the themes of belonging and alienation of foreign bodies. In this immersive retro-futuristic sci-fi, “alien” bodies fluctuate between being highlighted and disguised from their surroundings, raising questions about the notions of visibility. This audio visual project is meant to evoke an atmosphere of simultaneous displacement and agency, a sensation experienced by minority groups; the feeling of invisibility while still holding transformational power over the spaces they occupy. Through abstract imagery, this work reflects on the intergenerational emotional trauma of normalized suffering that is passed on through women, particularly in the Latin and Arab immigrant cultures.
This piece presents digital video in combination with VHS, Super 8mm film and chroma key techniques, accompanied with an immersive soundscape within an installation of water-like lighting and surfaces. This melancholic yet playful immersive environment invites the audience to reflect on their own experiences of displacement and longing.
This exhibition was previously exhibited at the Khyber Center for the Arts in May-June 2023.
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Creative Writing Workshop with Rima Sater and Laura Acosta
January 7, 1-3PM at Forest City Gallery
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In tandem with their two-person exhibition, You Can't Have Honey Without An Onion, Rima Sater and Laura Acosta will present this engaging community activity to connect with the local public of London,Ontario. The artists will open a space for individuals who want to reflect on their own experiences of visibility, longing, displacement and belonging through fictional story-telling. On Sunday, January 7 from 1-3PM, participants in this creative writing workshop will collaborate on a fictional narrative. Participants are invited to anonymously write small blurbs based on their personal reflections related to workshop themes. These pieces of writing will then be used as material to create an entirely new, abstract script collectively through a mad libs-type game. This script will be transcribed and left as printed copies available for visitors at the gallery during the exhibition.To sign up for this workshop, please email info@forestcitygallery.com
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Rima Sater is a Lebanese-Canadian interdisciplinary artist based in London, ON with a focus on film photography. Her artistic practice explores the transformation of architecture and landscapes through experiments with motion and lighting, installation, 35mm photography and Super 8mm film. Through these mediums, she examines the absurdities, mundane meanings and details of quotidian scenes and subjects. Laura Acosta is a Colombian-Canadian transdisciplinary artist based in Montreal, Quebec. Her work incorporates textile pieces, improvised movement and multimedia elements to create scenes that question the relationship between body and space. She explores notions of displacement and the performativity of identity through surrealist performance, video, sound and installation work. Laura has received a BFA from NSCAD University (Halifax), and an MFA from Concordia University (Montreal) where she is currently the Head of Wardrobe in the Theatre Department.
The collaborative practice between Rima Sater and Laura Acosta revolves around the idea of re-contextualizing every-day scenes in order to create dream-like imagery that speaks to the themes belonging and representation. Together they create escapist tropical fictions that explore different ways of telling stories through image and sound. Their collaborative projects have previously been exhibited at FOFA Gallery (Montreal) and have received the support of Canada Council for the Arts.
Rima Sater - www.rsater.com ; IG: @rdreama
Laura Acosta - www.laura-acosta.com ; IG: @butterburro
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On behalf of FCG's Staff and Board of Directors, thank you to our Membership, to our Community Sponsors, donors, and funders, and thank you to anyone who has come through our doors in 2023! FCG will be closed between December 21st, 2023 and January 5, 2024. We reopen on the evening of January 6 with a reception for You Can't Have Honey Without and Onion, a two-person exhbition by Rima Sater and Laura Acosta. We are excited for the next year of programming! In the meantime, have a safe and happy holiday season. |
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Our mailing address is:1025 Elias Street, London, Ontario, N5W 3P6, Canada FCG's programs and exhibitions are free and accessible to all thanks to the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, London Arts Council, and the London Community Foundation. We are grateful to our artists, members, volunteers, donors, and community partners. Our operations rely on your generous and dedicated support. Please consider becoming a member of FCG.For information on our programming, or for other general inquiries please contact the gallery at info@forestcitygallery.com Copyright © 2023 Forest City Gallery. All rights reserved.You received this email because you subscribed to our list. You can unsubscribe at any time.
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