KAG: Throwing Stones in Nowa Huta: Durational performance with Johnny Forever Nawracaj
Sat August 3, 20241:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Kamloops Art Gallery (465 Victoria St #101, Kamloops, BC V2C 2A9, Canada)
Free
Arts & Culture, Galleries & Exhibits
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All ages
The Cube
Join us in The Cube for an interactive performance with Johnny Forever Nawracaj as they activate their exhibition, Diasporic Anchors for Future Memory.
Throughout the day, Nawracaj will scroll through google maps on satellite view to search for cobblestones in their home neighbourhood in Nowa Huta, Poland. In their youth, some streets on their block were recobbled as part of a restoration project. This prompted Nawracaj’s father to share memories of his experiences in those same streets fighting a militarized police force and using stones found on the road and in between streetcar tracks to defend himself and fellow protesters emphasizing with a sly smile the practicality of living on a cobbled street in times of revolution. Isolating the cobblestones in Photoshop, Nawracaj will print them out for visitors to cut out, handle, contemplate, and take with them or leave in a pile on the gallery floor.
Diasporic Anchors for Future Memory includes a video triptych of Nawracaj’s father speaking about the importance of throwing stones as a strategy of intergenerational community resistance to militarized state oppression in 1980s Nowa Huta, Poland. Through this performance, Nawracaj seeks to emphasize their lifelong pride in these actions and ask the question: in the western imperialist and colonialist context, who is uplifted for throwing stones at a military oppressor as an act of resistance and who is demonized, imprisoned, and killed for this same act of resistance?
Participants of all ages are invited to drop in and join Nawracaj at any time throughout the performance, and stay for as long as they like.
Johnny Forever Nawracaj, Gambletron, and zev tiefenbach’s exhibition Diasporic Anchors for Future Memory, curated by Craig Willms, is on view in The Cube until September 21, 2024.
About Kamloops Art Gallery
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The Kamloops Art Gallery is a registered charity and not-for-profit society.
Incorporated in 1978, the Kamloops Art Gallery serves residents of and visitors to Kamloops (pop. 82,000) and the surrounding Thompson-Nicola Regional District (pop. 124,000) as well as national and international audiences.
In 1998, the KAG moved to a purpose-built civic building, designed by award-winning architects Peter Cardew and Nigel Baldwin, which also houses the Thompson-Nicola Regional District offices and the Kamloops branch of the TNRD Library System. The 20,853 square foot Gallery includes 4,500 square feet of exhibition space, an admissions/store area, two multipurpose studio/workshop/lecture rooms, a packing and acclimatization area, the collection storage vault with an adjoining workroom and, on a mezzanine above, administration and curatorial offices along with a research library. In 2006, the KAG was designated a Category “A” institution under the Cultural Property Export and Import Act.
The Gallery’s annual attendance has ranged between 24,000 and 37,000 over the last five years. It enjoys a national reputation for its touring exhibitions and publications and has developed relationships with national and international artists, curators, critics and scholars. The KAG is also well respected for its exhibitions, events and educational and public programs through activities organized and presented in the community and region involving both contemporary and historical art. Its collection as of December 2012 consists of 2,700 works that primarily reflect the Gallery’s exhibition history. In 2005, the KAG co-commissioned with the University of British Columbia’s Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Canada’s participation in the 51st Venice Biennale with the work of Rebecca Belmore.
Governed by a Board of Trustees, the KAG maintains an effective organizational structure that includes a Management Team led by the executive director, a Program Team led by the curator and a Development Team led by the manager of operations. Teams meet monthly to report, evaluate, problem solve and plan.
Vision
The Kamloops Art Gallery brings art, artists and communities together.
Mandate/Mission
The Kamloops Art Gallery is the principal gallery in the Southern Interior of British Columbia supporting contemporary and historical visual arts and practices on a local, national and international level. The KAG acknowledges art to be an essential part of the human experience in nurturing a healthy society. As a leading cultural institution, the KAG is an integral part of the fabric that draws intellectual, social and economic opportunities to our province and to our region.
The Kamloops Art Gallery fosters enjoyment of and interest in the visual arts by researching, developing and producing exhibitions, publications and programs that engage, challenge and inform its various audiences. The Gallery also oversees the development and preservation of a permanent collection that includes regional, national and international art in all media. It also strives to create rewarding opportunities for visual arts professionals and the public.
Guiding Principles
- Committed to art, artists and audiences
- Collaborative, respectful and ethical
- Tolerant, inclusive and diverse
- Relevant to local and regional communities
- Striving for excellence
- Fiscally responsible
- Sustainable