Jane Grace, Untitled (Self Portrait).
Antidote to Christmas!
A Curator’s Tour of Perspectives From Within
Presented by SITEc PROJECTS and OBAD – The Organization for Bipolar Affective Disorders, in partnership with Contemporary Calgary.
Friday December 17
5 pm
Free for Members
Free with $10 Admission
This is an in-person program. Masks are mandatory, and physical distancing will be maintained. Contemporary Calgary requires visitors ages 12 and older to provide proof of vaccination by scannable QR Code, documentation of a medical exemption, or a negative PCR or rapid test within the last 72 hours in order to enter the gallery.
If art functions to comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable, it could be said that Christmas does the opposite. Those of us with a comfortable existence invariably find joy through seasonal, familial get-togethers. However, those with few friends or marginal circumstances are more likely to be discomforted by expectations of social warmth and unaffordable excesses.
As an antidote to Christmas and its often-unreasonable demands, this exhibition tour promotes a sense of indulgence through an artful recalibration of societal “normalcy.” Rooted in a collective embrace of neuro-divergence, curator Dick Averns will offer a candid view of Perspectives From Within: a group show exploring lived experience of mental health.
Why panic over Christmas, shopping, or what to wear, when you can indulge in luxuriant paintings critiquing cosmetic panaceas, revealing a warts-and-all vision of anxiety confronting self-harm? Other artworks re-calibrate autobiography with videos of cancer recovery and candid family turmoil. And forget playing with doll houses, instead visiting Scenes From the Doll Hospital with its trappings of shock, shackling and morbid medication.
This event is free with normal gallery admission price. You won’t be asked to wear a name badge.
About the Speaker
Dick Averns
(he / him)
Dick Averns is a curator, artist and writer whose research specialties include conflict, mental health and public art. He was deployed with Canadian Forces as an official war artist in The Middle East and curates at The University of Calgary Founders’ Gallery at The Military Museums.
As an educator in 2017 he was named by Canadian Art Magazine as one of Canada’s leading post-secondary instructors to incorporate wellness into his teaching. Diagnosed with Tourette Syndrome well into his adult life, Dick has become and advocate for addressing mood disorders through art, and in 2020 received the City of Calgary Mayor’s Cultural Leaders Legacy Award for Healing Through the Arts.
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