‘Celestial Bodies’ is a first of its kind exhibition in Campbell River and the North Island
The group exhibition ‘Celestial Bodies’ aims to create space for visibility and advocacy for Canadian 2SLGBTQ+ communities. The show opens at the Campbell River Art Gallery on Sept. 2.
The seven artists in the exhibition celebrate sexuality and gender through the lenses of love, advocacy, erotics, and the right to safety.
“The CRAG is thrilled to create safe space for queer community members and celebrate the amazing work of 2SLGBTQ+ artists,” said Jenelle Pasiechnik, curator of contemporary art at The CRAG. “After the incredible turnout at CR Pride and partner events we are even more convinced that this is the right time for this show, and are here to support the wonderful queer community of Campbell River and North Vancouver Island.”
The exhibition will feature work by Cassils, Adrien Crossman, Dayna Danger, Rah Eleh, Brandon Hoax, Zachari Logan, and Vivek Shraya.
Curated by Jenelle M. Pasiechnik and Genevieve Flavelle, the opening reception on Sept. 2 at 6 p.m. will feature an artist talk by Rah Eleh and an after party with DJ ReSister.
“A celestial body is an aggregation of matter in the universe (such as a planet, star, or nebula) that can be considered a single unit,” write curators Jenelle M. Pasiechnik and Genevieve Flavelle. “By bringing together the work of seven contemporary artists working with these themes, the exhibition holds together an orbit for diverse bodies and subjectivities, considering how we all exist in relation to one another.”
The exhibition features a variety of mediums including video installation, photography, drawing, beading, and sculpture.
“This group of artists represents a wide array of approaches to themes of power, self-making and existence as an act of resistance,” Pasiechnik said. “They are superstars of contemporary art and craft their work with care, community-mindedness, and defiance of the gender binary.”
‘Celestial Bodies’ is showing at the Campbell River Art Gallery Sept. 2-Nov. 11. The gallery is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
To register for the opening reception go here!
Artist Bios
Cassils
Cassils is a transgender artist whose artwork contemplates the history(s) of LGBTQI+ violence, representation, struggle and survival. For Cassils, performance is a form of social sculpture: Drawing from the idea that bodies are formed in relation to forces of power and social expectations, Cassils’ work investigates historical contexts to examine the present moment. Cassils was born in Toronto, Ont. and now lives and works in Los Angeles, Calif.
Adrien Crossman
Adrien Crossman (they/them) is a queer and non-binary white settler artist, educator and curator currently residing on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples in so-called Hamilton, Ontario. Their work is deeply enmeshed with their queer and trans identity and is attentive to the ways that white supremacy and colonization have shaped dominant understandings of gender and sexuality. Their practice seeks to destabilise these systemic ideas and speculate on more expansive alternatives.
Crossman holds an MFA in Visual Art from the University of Windsor (2018), and a BFA in Integrated Media with a Minor in Digital and Media Studies from OCAD University (2012). They have exhibited across Canada and internationally and are an Assistant Professor in the School of the Arts at McMaster University. They are a former co-chair of the board of directors of the Hamilton Artists Inc and currently serve on the Inc’s Programming Committee.
Adrien is a co-founder and co-runs the online arts publication off centre with collaborator Luke Maddaford who runs LEFT contemporary in Windsor, ON.
Dayna Danger
Dayna Danger (they/them) is a Two-Spirit, Indigiqueer, Métis-Saulteaux-Polish, visual artist, hide tanner, and beadworker. Danger was born in Saskatoon and raised on Treaty 1 territory. Danger explores various mediums in their artworks, including sculpture, photography, performance, and video. Danger’s art is an act of reclaiming space and power over society’s projections of sexualities and representation. Danger’s focal point is collaboration and creating work for underrepresented groups. This transpires in Danger’s art through their large-scale images that place importance on women-identified, Two- Spirit, transgender, and non-binary people. Danger centers, kinship and practicing consent to build artworks that create a suspension of reality wherein complex dynamics of intimacy, gender, sexuality, BDSM,and mixed identities are explored.
Their photographic portrait series, Big’Uns, was featured on the cover of the Canadian Art Kinship issue in the summer of 2017. Recent exhibitions include ÀBADAKONE at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (2019), and Indexing Resistance at The Plump in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (2022). Danger’s art was long listed for the 2021 Sobey Art Award. Danger was recently an artist fellow for The Indigenous International: Green Architecture Project in Kenya through the Soul of Nations Foundation in the U.S. (2021-2022).
Danger has participated in residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Plug-In Institute (2017) and was recently the Indigenous Artist in Residence at McGill (2021). Danger is doing a doctorate at Concordia University, focusing on Two-Spirit roles and responsibilities at culture and hide-tanning camps.
Brandon Hoax
Brandon Hoax is a Haudenosaunee onᐱyoteʔa∙ká lotiskle:wake’ 2spirit child of a Stonecoat mother and Dullahan Father. Agender neural network angel extremophile trickster NDN artist from London Ontario, and Oneida Nation of the Thames living in K’jipuktuk. Brandon Hoax has an Interdisciplinary BFA (2018) from NSCAD University.
Vivek Shraya
Vivek Shraya is an artist whose body of work crosses the boundaries of music, literature, visual art, theatre, and film. Her album Part-Time Woman was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize, and her best-selling book I’m Afraid of Men was heralded by Vanity Fair as “cultural rocket fuel.” She is also the founder of the award-winning publishing imprint VS. Books, which supports emerging BIPOC writers.
A seven-time Lambda Literary Award finalist, Vivek was a Pride Toronto Grand Marshal and has been a brand ambassador for MAC Cosmetics and Pantene. She is a director on the board of the Tegan and Sara Foundation, an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Calgary, and is currently adapting her debut play, How to Fail as a Popstar, for television with the support of CBC.
Rah Eleh
Rah Eleh is a video, net and performance artist. Rah’s work has been exhibited extensively both nationally and internationally at spaces including: Images Festival (Toronto), Museum London, Carleton University Art Gallery (Ottawa), Williams College Museum of Art (Williamstown, Massachusetts), Miami Art Basel, Nieuwe Vide (Haarlem, Netherlands), Pao Festival (Oslo, Norway), Kunst Am Spreeknie (Berlin, Germany), Kunsthaus Graz Museum (Graz, Austria), and Onassis Cultural Center (Athens, Greece). She has been the recipient of numerous awards including: Chalmers Arts Fellowship, finalist for Team Canada in Digital Arts, Conseil Des Arts et Des Lettres Du Quebec Research/Production grant for Digital Arts (2014) and Film (2015), and a SSHRC Canada Graduate Scholarship. She has been awarded several residencies including the Koumaria Residency (Greece, 2016), AX Gallery (Berlin 2016), MUU Galleria (Helsinki, 2015), Studio Das Weisse Haus (Vienna, 2014) and the Artslant Georgia Fee Residency (Paris).
Rah was also the only Iranian-Canadian artist in SAW Galleries Ciphers: Tension with Tradition in Contemporary Iranian Photography which was curated by PhD. Andrea D. Fitzpatrick and was a first-of-its-kind exhibition of Iran’s most critically acclaimed lens-based artists. Later that year, Rah’s video Eslah, 2012, was published in Art Journal, Vol. 8, a scholarly article written by PhD. Francine Dagenais and was published in Tehran, Iran. Most recently, CineWomen Cahier, a biennial publication based out of Paris dedicated a twelve-page spread to Rah’s work Oreo. Rah’s work has been published and exhibited in galleries and museums internationally.
Zachari Logan
Zachari Logan is a Canadian artist working mainly in drawing, ceramics and installation practices. His work has been exhibited widely, in group and solo exhibitions throughout North America, Europe and Asia, including: Athens, Amsterdam, Atlanta, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Cincinnati, Chicago, Calgary, Edmonton, Grenoble, Kochi, Halifax, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Milan, Montreal, New York, Ottawa, Regina, Paris, Salo, Saskatoon, Seattle, Schio, Tampa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Verona, Vienna and Yonkers. Logan has attended residencies in Paris in conjunction with Galerie Jean Roch Dard, in rural Tennessee at Sassafras ARC/Liberty, in Calgary through Alberta College of Art + Design: Visiting Artist Program, in Vienna several times through both the Museum Quartier’s quartier21: Artist in Residence Program and project space Schliefmuhlgasse 12-14, and in London at Angus-Hughes Gallery. In the spring of 2015 Logan attended the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP), and returned to NYC during the winter of 2016 as artist in residence at Wave Hill Botanical Gardens in the Bronx. During the summer of 2017, Logan was Artist in Residence in the Tom Thomson Shack on the site of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection; part of a special commission to create a work in response to the centenary of Thomson’s death. Logan has also worked collaboratively with several artists, including Ross Bleckner and Sophie Calle. In 2014 Logan received the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for emerging artist, in 2015 an Alumni of Influence Award from the University of Saskatchewan, and in 2016 Logan was long-listed for the Sobey Award. Logan has received numerous grants from the Saskatchewan Arts Board, Creative Saskatchewan and Canada Council for the Arts and in 2016, received a Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant (NY).
