<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr"><br></div><div dir="ltr"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Charles Campbell: An Ocean to Livity</span><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline"> </span></b></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline"><b>October 14th, 2023 - January 14th, 2023</b></span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Curated by Jesse Birch and Jordan Strom</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Presented in partnership with Surrey Art Gallery</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">From the intimacy of a quiet inhalation to the distance between continents, </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Charles Campbell: An Ocean to Livity </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">brings together metal and mixed <span>media</span> sculptures along with immersive and participatory multichannel audio installations. Tapping into the fecundity of the Black diasporic imagination, Campbell reconstructs and reinvents lost connections, lamenting the violent disruptions of the past while constructing a home for Black communities’ strength of being.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Central to the exhibition is </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Black Breath Archive</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">, an installation of breath recordings from Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, and Lower Mainland residents. Campbell strips away racial hierarchies and holds up Black breath as its own force—a carrier of ancestry and experience, a creator of community and something that, even in its most subtle presentation, changes the way we think, feel, and live.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Other artworks that address breath and breathing are </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Breath Cycle</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline"> and </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Finding Accompong Reprise</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">. </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Breath Cycle</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline"> gestures towards a deeper past, connecting the oxygen we breathe to its production in symbiotic, multispecies communities of ancient lichen. </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Finding Accompong Reprise</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline"> </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">derives its shape from the bronchial structure of a human lung as well as the forked shapes of slave yokes (forked wooden sticks used to tie captives together in a line). Both these works nod to fractal geometry and binary counting systems that originated in Africa.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">“Livity” is a Rastafarian word that can either mean way of life or the life force present in every living thing. The artworks in</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline"> Charles Campbell: An Ocean to Livity</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline"> evoke a sense of journey, worldly interconnectedness, and communal struggle against the injustices of times past and present, geographies far and near.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:12pt;margin-bottom:12pt"><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Charles Campbell: An Ocean to Livity</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline"> is the seventh exhibition through which Nanaimo Art Gallery asks the question,</span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-style:italic;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline"> what stories do we tell? </span><span style="font-family:"Helvetica Neue",sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Exhibition tours are available to the public every Friday at noon.</span></p><b>Attached Images by Sean Fenzl</b><br><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(0,0,0);background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-variant-alternates:normal;vertical-align:baseline">Charles Campbell is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and curator who lives and works on lək̓ʷəŋən territory, Victoria, BC. His artworks, which include sculptures, paintings, sonic installations, and performances, have been exhibited widely in the Americas and Europe. Campbell is the recipient of the 2022 VIVA Award from the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation and the 2020 City of Victoria Creative Builder Award. He holds an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmith College and a BFA from Concordia University.</span></p><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Dana Gage (she/her)</span></p><p style="color:rgb(34,34,34);line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><font face="Arial"><span style="white-space:pre-wrap">Marketing & Communications Coordinator</span></font></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Nanaimo Art Gallery</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Snuneymuxw Territory</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">150 Commercial Street, Nanaimo BC</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-family:Arial;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">250-754-1750</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><a href="http://www.nanaimoartgallery.ca/" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank"><span style="font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">NanaimoArtGallery.ca</span></a></p></div></div></div></div>
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